Andrew Goodwin's theory of Pop music videos

Andrew Goodwin's feels that traditional narrative analyses (using such ideas Todorov) don't really apply to pop videos, because pop video's aren't trying to be avant garde - it is just that they approach narrative from a different angle to novels and films.

The main reason for the different narrative structures is as followed:

1. Pop videos are built around song - and often songs do not pose traditional narrative structures 9 normality-problem-resolution).
2. The pop video uses a singer both as narrator and as a character.
3. The singer often looks directly at the camera - this is and extension of (music-hall) performance and trying to involve the viewer at home with performance.

Pop videos rely on repetition. Often video's repeat images in the same way music repeat choruses or lines. Also the repetition in songs of parts or rhythms of other song (intertextuality) means that we become familiar with the genre and have certain expectations. Lastly the video would be played on TV, the song would be played on radio and there might be a advertising film or TV tie-in making the song familiar through repetition.

There are three types of relations between songs and videos: Illustration, amplification and disjuncture.

1. Illustration: This where the videos tell the story of the lyrics "pap don't preach" (Madonna) for example. Dance is often used to express the feelings/moods in the song.

2. Amplification: Occurs when the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning.

3. Disjuncture: this where there is little connection between the lyrics and video or where contradicts the video contradicts the lyrics. Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror is an example of this. The song is about self-realization but the video is full of radical world events.


I believe our music video to be Disjuncture, this is due to the fact that there is next to know relevance or connection between our song and music video, our song has no lyrics so its hard to fix a basis of a story for a music video with the song, as our song is purely instrumental. There is no repetition In our music video as there is in usual pop videos, our music video follows a story rather then repeating the video through the chorus. Our video isn’t built around the song in anyway really.

Analysis of album covers within our chosen genre

In the electronic genre of music, it seems that albums covers tend to copy the same few concepts.

These usually connotate the artist being bigger than anything else in the world, deadmau5 taking it to literal extremes through his use of the costume head filling the entire album cover.

The majority seem to focus on the artist themselves, the exception in this case being the Cross by Justice, which focusses on a symbol instead.

The other album covers, such as 09/17/2007/ EP by Danger, 4x4=12 by Deadmau5 and Alive 2007 by Daft Punk all features atleast a few elements, or even the artist themselves. Deadmau5 uses his mouse head as the central focus of his album cover, using his already established image just as Danger does with his album.

Although Danger's likeness is the central focus point of the album, it seems to try and place him in a more localized environment, perhaps relating him more to his audience?

Alive 2007 by Daft Punk uses a simplistic image of the duo's live stage set, as it is a live album, but through the use of font and colour is still recognizable as a Daft Punk album.

Overall, well established artists tend to use their image or elements of their visual style on their album covers to attract an existing audience, whilst introducing themselves to a new audience as a brand. Newer artists, such as Justice don't have an established brand, and have selected a concept that has became one of their staples of live gigs, rather than the reverse of Daft Punk's album cover. This stark contrast to the others , as it contains no information about the album, nor the artist, the only indication the audience knows that the album is by Justice is a symbol vaguely linked to them.

Using this research we've decided to focus more on the image relating to the product, as it gives the audience a clear understanding of what or product is.