RESEARCH - Andrew Goodwin's Theroy

Andrew Goodwin

 

Andrew Goodwin’s theory about music is that traditional narrative analyse don’t really apply to pop videos. There are number of reasons for this, also he believes that pop videos approach narrative from and different angle to novel and films.

1.       Pop music are built around songs

2.       The pop video uses the singer both as narrator and as a character

3.       The singer often looks directly at the camera

Pop videos reply on reception. Often the videos repeat images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. Pop songs and therefore videos do have a form of closure and ending. The 3 minute single that a video is based on must end and this often reflected in structure of the music.

Some videos are autonomous from the music they spring from; sometimes the video provides a visual pleasure that encourages repeated viewing which therefore promotes the music. Sometimes the videos might be promoting other commodities such as films. There are three types of relations between song and videos; illustration, amplification and disjuncture


illustration :

illustration is commonly used in music videos ;  such as  Survivor - Destiny's Child with Lyrics , Pink Family Portrait.

This video of Lil Wayne- How To Love is an example for Illustration.

 This song fits the category because the video tells the story of the lyrics. For example ; in 1.21 seconds when Lil Wayne says

 "When you was just a youngin' your looks were so precious"

 In this song a flash back was used to when the girl was a little girl showing how precious , innocent and  vulnerable she was. if follow the story line closely the man behind her takes of his belt and physically starts forcing her to be quite ; this suggests that he was about to rape her, which leads to her not knowing 'how to love ' because she was emotional damaged from a young age. 

 

Amplification:

Amplification happens when the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers to the meaning.

An example of an amplification song is; Beyoncé - If I was a boy

Disjuncture; this is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or where the video contradict the lyric.  

An example of an disjuncture song is ; Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror

 This video is an example of disjuncture because the video and the lyric do not comply. the song is about talking man in the mirror and making a change, however in the video we don't see a single image of anyone in the mirror, however the video contains a number of historical events. In this video Michael Jackson plays the narrator.