Summary of the main points of Andrew Goodwin's theory

Andrew Goodwin is a professor of Media Studies in the university of San Francisco. He has wrote many books about the media world. He is very critical in his blog

http://professorofpop.blogspot.com/

there are plenty of articles about him reviewing music videos or music in general.

In his book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory"

He expresses that pop videos nowadays have no traditional narrative analysis. He thinks the reason for this is that music video directors approach narrative from a different angle to novels and films. He thinks that Pop videos are built around songs (often songs do not have traditional narrative structure), and pop music video director uses the singer both as narrator and as a character. Also the singer often looks directly at the camera and trying to involve the viewer at home with the performance.

Repetition is also something that is often seen in modern Pop videos. It means that the audience would become familiar with the genre and have certain expectations, and as the video will be played on TV, the song will also be played on the radio and the video act as an advertisement to buy the CD.

The visualisation of a song in videos may go beyond the original meaning because sometimes the video provides a visual pleasure that makes the viewers want to watch it repetitively and therefore it promotes the song. When a music video promotes other commodities such as films this counts as synergy and is beneficial for both parties.

There are 3 types of relations between songs and videos

• Illustration : where the video tells the story of the lyrics

For example Lady Gaga's Paparazzi video

The way Lady Gaga narrates and also participate in this music video illustrate the song is very unique. She uses costume and the mise en scene in the video to express the mood of the song. The editing and choreography makes the video very illustrative that it is rich in visual aspects. Which is why I think that this video represents Goodwin's illustration law.

• Amplification: When the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning.

an video example is Adele's Chasing Pavement

The lyrical meaning of the song is Adele's own personal memory of when she broke up with her boyfriend after he had cheated on her and thought

"What is it you're chasing? You're chasing an empty pavement."

I think that this video suits the amplification idea because the video has a very unique story line and choreography which centres around a car crash in Hyde Park. I think that the video gives a literal meaning to "Chasing Pavements"

• Disjuncture: This is where the is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradicts the lyrics.

An example of this is Michael Jackson' Man in The Mirror

I feel that this video is a powerful video because the lyrics itself is very emotional and it's literally like as if Michael Jackson was holding a mirror to the audience saying "this is what the world is like so why don't we change". The use of clips from third world countries makes the video more effective and powerful.

Goodwin also expresses the recognisable features of music videos, for example the way women are presented as objects of male desire in Hip Hop videos and such. Another feature is that videos try and appeal to as wide an audience as possible without forgetting their target audience, for example an older band may feature their younger days in their video to attract younger audience but older audience can still identify with them.