Andrew Goodwin has established the following theories on the identification of music videos and the conventions seen; for example there are certain relationships between the music and the visuals as well as voyeuristic elements, iconography and style specific to genre.
The following are the certain established relationships:
Illustration - This type of music video simply links the lyrics of the song with the visuals seen on screen, illustrating simple narratives relevant within the lyrics.
I believe an example of an illustration video is Lionel Richie's 'Dancing on a Ceiling' as it has a simple narrative which easily links and visualises the lyrics. For example the lyrics 'We're gonna have a party' has an easy visual as the audience can see a party is going on, however the most iconic lyric demonstrated is 'Oh what a feeling, when we're dancing on the ceiling' and Lionel Richie is literally seen dancing on the ceiling followed by everyone else at the party joining him on the ceiling when the lyrics 'Come on' and 'The only thing we want to do is go round and round and turn upside down'. The video has a simple narrative and a simple performance by Lionel Richie therefore fitting in the Illustration category.
Amplification - This type of music video has an amplified concept, it usually contains a narrative or performance which is creatively interpreted but it still relevant to the lyrics.
Beyonce's 'If I were a boy' music video is an example of an amplification music video due to the narrative which it features. The video turns out to be about jealousy which is explored by the role reversal of Beyonce with her partner, the audience realise it is a role reversal at the end of the video when the song stops and the narrative takes the full attention. The lyrics still match the song but the ideas are more developed through the narrative and are less simplistic as the illustration category.
Disjucture- This type of video has no direct link to the lyrics or visuals, the videos are abstract and do not have any links to the concepts and creativity seen in the video.
Florence + The Machine's 'Dog Days' video is a clear example of a disjuncture video as the costumes, location and make up have no direct link to lyrics and has a completely abstract representation. The dancing features no relevance to the song, again more evidence of the video fitting into the disjuncture category.
Music Video Genre:
A large percentage of music videos can be easily categorised into specific genres, whereas others may be more difficult:
Hip Hop - In hip hop music videos we perhaps expect to see certain things such as: expensive cars, barely clothed attractive girls, money, partying etc.
This is clearly demonstrated in LMFAO's 'Shot' ft Lil Jon
This requires little explanation as it is evident the the above mentioned conventions are contained in this video, it does however lack the expensive cars and so it is appropriate to include 50 Cent's 'Candy Shop'
This video is unconventional due to the 'spooky' location at the start but as the video continues we see it is an elaborate mansion, the expensive car, personalised own branded shoes, 'bling', voyeurised women, sex etc all feature in this video which indicates Hip Hop.
Rock/ Metal - Many conventions of this genre include, guitars, drum kits and actual music equipment being part of the visuals on screen, characters within the video may have long hair, darker locations, tattoos, darker themes in terms of narrative and content, moshing, more performance based videos/ live performance, violence, strong emotions.
A good example of this is Slipknot 'Duality' and Nervana 'Smells Like Team Spirit'
Pop - These videos usually contain upbeat, happy vibes and some dance routines. This genre is more diverse is content depending on whether the music video is for a band or for a solo artist.
For example S Club 7 features a dance routine, cheesy acting and upbeat, have a good time narratives; all conventional.
No comments:
Post a Comment