Andrew Goodwin's Key features of music video

Andrew Goodwin in Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992) has identified the following features of music video:

• Music videos demonstrate genre chracteristics eg. stage performance in heavy metal video, dance routine for boy/girl band.
• There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting).
• The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifts which recur across their work ( a visual style) eg Katy Perry or Michael Jackson. (analysed in other blogs)
• There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyerustic treatment of the female body).
• There is often intertextual reference to films, TV programms, other music videos, etc).

This music video that i have found by Led Zeppelin, identifyies all of the main things of a heavy metal music video. It shows them on a stage performance, with many fans in the audience. The video shows close ups of the band members playing their instruments which is usually popular. The editing of the music video is very fast pace which makes it so effective.



This music video shows a dance routine live of the boy band, New Kids On The Block. This music video is a completely different genre to the heavy metal music video, so the pace of the editing is different. The boy band dance in a synchronising routine, which is a good part of their act because it makes many girls scream. All of their outfits are very casual and all different, where as many others all dress the same.



This music video that can relate to illustrative and amplyfing lyrics is this song I Wont Give Up by Jason Mraz. It is a beautifully written song about people who want to give up on the things they love because they believe they cant, however the music video and lyrics say that if you try hard enough you can. It is amplyfing because after telling the story about many different people, it shows Jason Mraz singing to the song.


This music video of Like a Prayer by Madonna, is very contradicting. This is because the lyrics describe her falling in love, however the music video shows something not related to the lyrics at all. The music video is very violent and racist, it is telling a story about the racism in America.



This music video by Nicki Minaj is shown to have many close ups of her. The main reason for this is because she was a very new artist at this time and wanted to show her face off. In this music video also Nicki is shown to wear many coloured wigs which has developed as a motif which has occured in her work. Throughout this music video it shows her wearing very bright makeup that matches her hair, which inspires young female adults to watch. 





This music video is a great example to explore the references to the notion of looking. This is a very popular key feature to many female music videos as it includes many scenes of the female body. This can refer to the Laura Mulvey theory of the 'male gaze' which in my opinion does. This is because there are many scenes shown of the female body which males would intend to watch other that females. This music video by Rihanna is a great example of this as she is barley wearing anything throughout this music video, also it has close up scenes of the female body. 





This music video 'walks like Rihanna', sung by The Wanted included intertextual references to many other music videos. They have used many popular boy bands music videos in order to mimic them for their own music video. They used music bands such Take That, N'Sync and Boy zone, which were all very popular. The Wanted have been very clever with this as they don't just mimic one particular band, but many others. 

History of Pop Videos

1940

The 1940's is when traditional pop music was started, and the most famous artist of this time was Bing Crosby. He was known for his bass-baritone voice which made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation. He was the beginning of the evolution of pop music and music videos. However, Bing was only seen singing in films and his TV shows. He had many fans from these films and TV shows, which also made film and TV company very popular! 

This is Bing Crosby singing 'Only Forever' in the film 'Rhythm on the River' in 1940. 

Early 1950

Frank Sinatra replaced Bing Crosby for becoming the worlds biggest star in the 1950's. Similar to Bing Crosby, Frank was only seen on TV specials, films or his music concerts. Sinatra got his first break in the 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group, The Three Flashes, to let him join. With Frank joining the group, they thenm became known as the Hoboken Four and they sufficiently impressed Edward Bowes. After appearing on his show, Major Bowes Amateur Hour, they attracted 40,000 votes and won first prize. In which the first prize was a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the United States. Long after this Sinatra wanted to go solo and finally got signed to Columbia records where he then became one of the biggest stars in the 1950s. 

This is one of Frank Sinatra's biggest hits from the 1950s. 

Also, this film called 'High Society' made Frank even more popular during the 1950s!

Late 1950's.

In the late 1950's, Elvis Presley came onto the scene and then become 'the birth of Rock and Roll'.  Elvis was known to be the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century and got the name for himself as "the King of Rock and Roll" or simply "The King". Elvis became the leading figure of rock and roll after shown on a series of network TV appearances and chart topping records. He energised interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style in which made him very popular and controversial. Elvis then had a 2 year break and then went back stronger than ever, appearing in Hollywood films and recording the soundtracks for the films. After following a seven year break, in 1968 he returned to the stage and acclaimed his comeback which led to an extended Las Vegas concert and highly profitable tours. 

1960

The Beatles were introduced in the 1960s as an English rock band consisting of four people. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr became the greatest and most influential act of the rock era. The Beatles experimented with several genres such as pop ballads and hard rock. The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960.The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February, the Beatles's first nationwide, preceded three-week tours in March and May–June. By early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. According to the RIAA, the Beatles are the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. Their only appearance on Top of The Pops was in 1967 where they sang both Paperback Writer and Rain. This became their final live TV appearance as a group. 

Audience Theory

Reception Theory: 

This theory is based on the idea that there is no single meaning for any media text. The theory focuses on what people see in the media and the meanings they produce. It has been known to say that messages from the media texts can have a preferred meaning but anyone can have an individual interpretation. Stuart Hall who studied at Birmingham University in the 1970's developed that the effects model and the uses and gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences. This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences. 

Audience Readings:

These are affected by variables of age,gender, social status and social context and thus they might not accept the preferred meaning. 

Suture:

Classical Hollywood narrative, editing, sound and mise en scene 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading(reception theory) possible. According to these theories, the audience "stitches" itself into a film by relating to characters or world views expressed in a film, and then filling in the temporal and spatial gaps between scenes with our imaginations. This has made it all easier when techniques, codes and conventions of film are made 'invisible' by the filmmakers.