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Andrew Goodwin’s
Music Theory
Andrew Goodwin was a key feature in development of
popular music studies.
“Music videos ignore common narrative as they are essentially advertisements. As
consumers, we make up our own meaning of a song in our minds: a music video can
anchor meaning and gives the record company/artist a method of anchoring
meaning” Andrew Goodwin
He had studied media and culture at the University of Birmingham.
He also taught for many years in the Department of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco.
He had published many numerous articles regarding media and cultural theory.
He is interested in media aesthetics, critical theory and popular music.
Andrew Goodwin identifies that audience should look out for 5 key
aspects: Thought through beats (what lyrics mean)
Narrative and performance of song
Relationship between the song and visuals
Technical aspects of music video
Star images-camera shots, which make him/her centre
Thought Through Beats Seeing what they mean or represent in your head.
First step: Look at the music itself. You must analyse the music structure by understanding the chorus and verses.
Second step: Look at the voice of the song. The voice of the artist is extremely unique compared to others and will give the person a form of identification that can be related to the star image.
Third step: The artist mode of address by the song. They can be seen as stories and the artist becomes the storyteller. And the music video can aid this by showing us the video through the vocals of the songs.
Narrative and performance of the song
He said that we tend to make up our own idea of the messages being sent from basic understanding of what it may actually be about.
Narrative and performance work together as this makes it easier for the audience to watch over and over without loosing interest.
Goodwin believed that it was important for artists to be involved in the music video by performing or acting out a role as the main character. He thought that this helps the song look more realistic and increases the authenticity. Also this give the audience a special connection and good understanding of the song. This means that they need to believe that this is real so artist need to make it look as real as possible.
Relation between the song and visualsThere are three ways in videos that are used to promote a song:
Illustrate Music videos can use a set of
images to illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre.
Amplify Music videos are manipulated and
shown repeatedly throughout music video and drilled into our vision.
Disjuncture This is where the meaning of the
song is completely ignored.
Technical aspect of music video Technical aspects hold the music video
together through set of camera work, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects.
Lighting and colour helps to set the mood for the music video and create emphasis on significant parts of the song to create a dramatic effect and thrill the audience.
Mise-en-scene is also vital to the production of the music video, it can help the artist gain authentication and also make their work appear more professional.
Beats of the song are also very useful as they can help to create effective cuts that go with the rhythm of the song to make the music video look more entertaining.
Star image
Goodwin referred to the star image as vital aspect of the music video, she/he makes the music video look more appealing to the audiences while bringing a unique style to the video in the way she/he is portrayed to the audience. The star image is always
very unique in the way he/she is presented by the costume, movement and appearance. This helps to promote the star’s image in a public and also help to promote the video while creating a public reputation for the artist.
Goodwin recognised that most artist have a trend of repeating certain actions within their music videos in order to establish this as their ‘trademark’ action and therefore
making their songs recognisable due to it reoccurring often. This represents the style of the music the artist is
representing and is a marketing strategy in order to be remembered in later years. Genre is also shown by location, for example, pop music always contain crowded locations to show the popularity of this genre and fun associated with it.
Whereas indie rock often is filmed in an abandoned and lonely place to convey an individual in an isolated location.
Goodwin identified that it is a common feature for record labels to use close ups of the artist as this promote the
single and increase sale.
Goodwin also recognised that many music videos
included variety angles of women in order to entice a male audiences interest in the artist and also the lyrics to which the shot
represent. This is used to sexualise the artist and
cause a fascistic connection for the male
audience.
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