Andrew Goodwins Thoery

Music videos became much more popular and began to trend during the 1990s. This meant more people were watching them and their budgets increased massively therefore making them more visually appealing and attractive for the audience. During this time a theorist named Andrew Goodwin noted 7 point that appear in the majority of all music videos.


Lyrics linking to the visuals:

This is when the visuals and imagery of the video have a direct relationship with the lyrics of the video. They either play off each other or match each other. The music video can often just bring to story of the song to life. This is evident in #SELFIE by The Chainsmokers in 2014. The lyris repeat the word selfie throughout the video and the characters in the video also take selfies at these moments. This illustrates the meaning of the word as well as amplify the meaning of the song and its lyrics.

Song genre linking to the visuals:

This refers to the genre of the song. Each genre shows off different sounds therefore they all create a different meaning a story. Goodwins theory therefore says that the visuals of the music video will link to the genre of the song by presenting a certain tone or feeling by using stereotypes and characteristics of that genre. For example, boy bands often incorporate a dance routine into their videos as well as using their own faces rather than using actors. The dances often give off a positive vibe and the target audience gets to see their favourite band in the video. This has been shown in the One direction video for "What makes you beautiful" from 2011.

Music linking to visual:

This is when a certain emotion is created by the music and that emotion is then portrayed through the visuals used in the music video. this theory also works when the visuals cut in time with the beat of the music. This can be seen in "Single Ladies" by Beyonce as this video has no narrative story and just features Beyonce and dancers dancing to the beat of the music.

Demands of the record label:

A record label will only sign an artist if they have a strong image that can give a good name to their brand. Therefore they will demand certain things from the artists in order to publicise their brand. This often involves giving the star artist a strong image and high star treatment. This image therefore brings people to the video and ends up giving the record label a large amount of publicity. For example, Michael Jackson appeared in all of his videos to give that star image. However, his record label also required him to feature his classic dance moves as this also gave artist iconography for the "king of pop".

Artist Iconography:

Each artist has to be unique so they can attract fans and stand out from the competition. An easy way to do this is to create yourself a motif or symbol that is either part of your performer image or sums up you as a person or band. For example Marshmallo and his helmet.

Notion of Looking:

Making the audience look with more intent means it is more likely that they will remember the video and the song. However, getting people to pay attention often means having to use a voyeuristic approach or employ the use of male gaze. For the video of  "Wrecking Ball" by Miley Cyrus she used her own body to attract a greater male audience through the use of male gaze.

Intertextuality:

This is when another media format is mentioned within the video. Making these links will interest more people in the video as they will most likely understand the intertextual therefore making it more likely that they remember the video and the song. "Bad Blood" by Taylor Swift includes several intertextual references. For example, each character has a certain specific costume. one of these is a bad leather outfit made to remind us of cat woman. Also the video cuts straight away into an action film opening making the audience feel the tension of the action. The video also has references to films such as "Kill Bill" and the training scene in "The Hunger Games".