Theorist - Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin's book 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' identifies multiple key features of music videos, these include; 

1) Particular music genres may have their own music video style and iconography

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals

3) There is a relationship between music and visuals. ( visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music)

4) The demand of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs (or star iconography) which recurs across their work.

5) There is a frequent reference to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6) Often an inter-textual reference.

In order to fully understand these ideas, I decided to look into and find examples of these ideas, and therefore further my research and knowledge into developing and understanding the makings and behind scenes of music videos.

ICONOGRAPHY - 

As previously researched, I found that the RNB genre tend to wear less clothes and be associated with clubbing in their music videos. This is an example of iconography. For example take 'Kid Ink - Show Me'. This shows the artist and his friends in the middle of a house party. A common associate to this particular music genre. Also, 50 Cent's 'P.I.M.P' holds this iconography as it holds a lot of shots with girls with minimal clothing.







RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LYRICS AND VISUALS -

Kesha's 'TiK ToK' is a very good example of the relationship between lyrics in a song and the visuals the music video provide. Throughout the whole of this music video there are multiple occasions where whatever the lyric is, the visuals match this. For example when the lyric 'before I leave brush my teeth with a bottle of jack', we see the artist pick up her tooth brush and start brushing her teeth. When the lyric 'pedicure on our toes', you see the visual of her leopard print toe nails. 'Gonna smack 'em if they're getting too drunk' is followed with Kesha slapping the male in the face, again this all fits with the aspect of the lyrics matching the visuals.





RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MUSIC AND VISUALS

An example of this is in The Wanted track 'Walks Like Rihanna'. In this video, the visuals and music match as at one point the strobe lights in the back are in time with the music.




STAR ICONOGRAPHY 

This is the need for lots of close ups of the artist. An example I found of this is Lorde, In her song 'Royals', there are multiple shots referring back to her, shooting in close up, and switching between this and the story of the song acted out. These close up's of the artist is helping create a 'star image' for her as her face is shown close up a lot throughout the video.



VOYEURISTIC TREATMENT OF THE FEMALE BODY 

An example of voyeurism in music videos is Rihanna's - 'Stay' music video that portrays her naked in the bath tub. This is a very intimate and explicit music video although there is never anything majorly explicit, it is still voyeuristic treatment of the female body.



INTERTEXTUAL REFERENCE 

Robbie Williams' 'You Know Me' is an example of intertextual reference in a music video. This music video does this by taking the artist to an Alice In Wonderland setting, with the artist dressing up as the rabbit from the film. As well as this, at the end of the music video there is a shot of Robbie in the Metro-Goldwyn trademark, with the lion being replaced by the same rabbit in the music video. This creates intertextuality between the film and the music video.