Theories on Music Videos

For my research I have looked at some professionals theories and opinions based on music videos to gain more of an understanding of what a music video needs to be successful.


Goodwin: Goodwin identified 5 key features that define music videos as a form:


1. Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography: For example, depending on what type of music the artist or band are producing, the music video has to be coherent with their style e.g. for a pop girl or boy band, they may include dance routines whereas rock/metal artists or bands include stage performances in their video.

• I hope to use a slow rock song so perhaps need to show the artist or actor playing music whilst conveying a story.

2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals: So if song describes a story or a theme then it would be clear to illustrate that through the music video so it matches.
3. There is a relationship between music and visuals: To make sure the camera work, editing, costume, actors, locations and mise en scene work with the tempo and style of the song.
4. The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs (or star iconography) which recur across their work : This is so that the artist creates a star image for themselves and also well represents the record company.
5. There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

• This will be hard for me and the type of music I want to use however I could do this in a less obvious and promiscuous way.

6. There is often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).


Dyer: Stars and Stardom


In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences, it is important to consider the roles of music stars . The term ‘star’ refers to the semi-mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience.


Some common values of stars in the music industry:

• Youthfulness
• Rebellion
• Sexual Magnetism
• An anti-authoritarian attitude
• Originality
• Creativity/talent
• Aggression/anger
• A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour
• Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material goods
• Success against the odds

Richard Dyer has written about the role of stars in film, TV and music. No matter the medium, stars have some key features in common:

• A star is an image and a created persona, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is out of a range of materials (advertising, magazines as well as films and music)
• Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings
• Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media – magazines, TV, radio, the Internet – in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audiences.
• The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences

Negus: The ideologies of the Music Industry


“What I’m looking for is the working act. The real act. The act that can get up on stage and do it. That act will give you a career. I signed Black Sabbath umpteen years ago; they are still making records. These are acts that are career acts…Two years ago I started a dance label…Now that’s not a career orientated label. I mean those records are one-off situations and every now and again maybe you’ll get an artist come out of it.”

Record company executive, quoted in Negus (1989)

• Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential artists from within the music industry.
• These ideologies shape the way in which the artists’ images and careers are developed, and the way that they are marketed towards specific target audiences
• The organic ideology of creativity and synthetic ideology of creativity

The organic ideology includes a naturalistic approach to artists however the image of the artist has been enhanced by the record company and then they are given time to evolve into that artist and progress. Emphasis is then given to album sales and often aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers whereas the synthetic ideology goes with a combinatorial approach to both artists and material. The image is normally strongly constructed by the record company in terms of their image and style of songs and the artist won't have as much time to prove their success. This gives more emphasis on single sales and first albums and promotes to a younger audience.


Steve Archer: Dancing in the Distraction Factory
Top 5 things to look for in recent music videos.


1. ‘Thought Beats’ also known as seeing the sounds in your head The basis for visualising images comes from a psychological process called synaesthesia, where you picture sounds in your mind’s eye. This idea is very important to understanding music video as they build on visual material to help the audience connect. For this the approach used is to feel the mood of the music and not to analyse the song lyric by lyric otherwise their is no meaning and it's too literal. So for example key phrases or lines (and especially those repeated in the chorus) will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song.


Generally we can look at key sounds, like the tempo (or speed of the song) and structure of the song in terms of verse and chorus. To give an example of how instruments can create visual associations, the slow twang of the steel guitar could create geographically-based visual associations from the Deep South of the US – a desert plain, a small town, one road out, men chewing tobacco … We all share a memory bank of popular culture imagery (intertextuality), a sense of shared cultural history without which these references would make no sense. Places, people, feelings, situations leading to mini-narratives – all these can be summoned from the sounds of popular music.


2. Narrative and performance The narrative fuzz in songs affects the way stories are used in music video representations of a song’s meaning. So, often we get the suggestion of a story, a hint at some kind of drama unfolding.


Music videos need to have repeatability built in to them. We need to be able to watch them repeatedly in a more casual way, with a looser approach to their storytelling. I’d suggest that more important than narrative is the way that performance is used in video clips. Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-sync close-up and the mimed playing of instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it.


3. The star image


The music business relies on the relatively few big name stars to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect with popular audiences – only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term that describes the development of the star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.


4. Three ways in which music videos relate visuals to the song
These are illustration, amplification and disjuncture and useful in attempting to generalise the effects of individual music videos.


• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images. Here, then, is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation, with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.


• However, as with all advertising, the most persistent type of video adds to the value of the song. Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video Auteur, the director as artist, and an increasingly common way to view music video creatives. Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop ideas, rather than changing them.


• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that (normally intentionally) seem to work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality to an audience.

5. Technical aspects of music video


The last really essential aspect of music video to study is technical. This includes camerawork, movement and angle, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound. It is important to remember the more general features of music videos already mentioned when trying to work out the technical effects, especially those which are post-production, effects. Broadly, the technical conventions can be summed up as follows:


1. Speed! Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects.
– Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers.
– Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times (repeatability).
– Post-production digital effects – a staple of music video where images can be colorized, multiple split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again.


Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static shots. This kind of editing – like Sinead O’Conner’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – is striking and effective in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.


2. Meat! The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer’s face. This is because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.


3. Beats! Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the beat or key rhythm.


4. Lighting and colour may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any change in the mise-en-scène or camerawork can signal the same type of thing.


5. Mise-en-scène – obviously the setting for music videos is important, often to guarantee the authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scène for many music videos is the concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs, which don’t rely so much on being ‘real’ like rock, soul and rap acts.