Method of Analysis - Andrew Goodwin

Taken from his book written in the early 1980's about the music channel MTV,
Andrew Goodwin came up with a method of analysis about what is often found in most music vide os and what effect this has. There are 5 points which he covers which are:


- Genre Characteristics
- Visual relationship with lyrics and music
- Needs to sell the artist as a 'star'
- Voyerism
- Intertexuality (referring to something of a different media medium e.g Film/TV/Adverts)

Genre
There is always a certianstereotypical music video fro a certain genre characteristic. For example, Boyband videos are always considered as "cheesy" and usually are performance based rather then narrative. Also, in terms of mise en scene and costume, they are usually all dressed very similarly and are singing in the countryside or an open space.




Visuals and Relationships

Relating back to the candy shop video, the title of the song is a metaphor. He isn't buying any "candy to eat", but the candy for him is simply the half dressed girls in this "candy mansion". The popular 80's band "Madness" had a successful hit with the song "our house". In this video the band dress up as a whole family and show them living inside a house. This makes the visuals and relationships funny to watch as the band members are all male and so some have to be dressed as female characters. Also, the single "Thriller" from pop legend Micheal Jackson, is more of a horror music video then thriller. Thriller usually isn't as graphic as this video is as it includes zombies and scary sound effects etc and so this is a way in which Micheal Jackson "played" with the visuals and relations of his video.


Star Image
It is always very important for a music video to make a good impression to the viewers of the artist/band who is singing and performing. Whether its a performance of narrative video, it should always include plenty of close ups of the artist/band and so that the image projected to the viewers watching is positive. According to Andrew, at least 50 close up shots should be included per minute of the song.


Voyerism

This is the technique used within music videos which had a "screen within screen basis". This is shown in within many music videos such as candy shop - 50 cent. In this video, the girl in which 50 cent wants to "be with" she appears in photos along the corridor and they start to "come alive". In Jay-Z's most recent video "99 problems", before walking underneath a subway to catch a train, he is shown singing within an advertisement poster singing, this too is a symbol of voyerism.

Voyersim has been around for a while but it all began back in the 1940's with the famous soul singer Nat King Cole. The act that in his music video he is sitting in a cafe singing, you then see him watching himself, on a video screen, This was fascinating back in the 1940's as it was a "moving image within another". Since then it has been popular ever since.

Intertexuality

Intertexuality is the shaping of texts meanings by other texts, so in terms of a music video, when an artist is borrowing something from a film or TV programme they have seen and make the "theme" of it their own. It is used very cleverly in videos so that the public who watch them would have already seen something similar before and will therefore grow to like it straightaway.

J-Lo and Geri halliwell both used this concept in one of their videos. They took the opening scene from the popular dance film "Flash dance" where they walk in by them self which what appears to be some kind of dance audition and putting the needle on the record to play their song. Geri however takes a more comical approach and falls over during her dance and says "can I start again?" and then it to her music video of "It's raining men".

Robbie Williams hit single "millennium" in 2000, had intertexuality in relating to the theme of James bond. The casino champagne, white suit etc. James Bond is a film loved by many people of all different ages and Robbie thought this would attract a variety of different people to watch his music video.

Similarly to this, Madonna has also used it in her video Vogue by using the concept of "diamonds are a girls best friend" by Marilyn Munroe.




User Generated Content
This is when things that already exist in a music video are changed into something else. There are lots of examples of this on the Internet, but here are the most popular:

This is a remixed video of Jay-Z 99 problems with a famous Beatles song. The way they have used voyersim in the video makes it look like this is the actual original video created.



This is a send up of Micheal Jacksons video thriller, but is by a group of Asian prisoners