Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Analysis

Andrew Goodwin wrote a book which was "Dancing in the Distraction Factory" this book consisted of Goodwin's theory on music videos, which was that most music videos followed a set of rules or codes and conventions so that the music video would work with the genre effectively.

1. The first rule is that music videos demonstrate typical genre characteristics for example rock songs normally consist of a stage performance, a boy band or girl band normally have a dance routine and then rap songs normally have lots of shots of women and nice cars.

2. The second rule is there normally is a relationship between lyrics and visuals, this is normally the basics for most music videos but generally is most consistent in indie rock bands as they normally have a narrative video which stays consistent to the song lyrics. However it is done in other genre's to just not as consistently.

3. The third rule is that there is a relationship between the music and the visuals. There are three different techniques or ways in which the visuals are used to promote the song; illustrate, disjuncture and amplify.

4. The fourth rule is that the demands of the record label will include the need of lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which gives the artist a visual style which then recurs across their work. A big example of this would be Lady Gaga because of the extravagant outfits she wears and then also Katy Perry who also wears quite extravagant clothing in her music videos.  

5. The fifth rule is that there is frequently reference to notion of looking such as images of screens within screens or telescopes and then also the voyeuristic treatment of the female body, which links in with Mulveys theory which is that women are there to be looked at.

6. The sixth and final rule is that there is quite often an intertextual reference this is when an idea is taken from a past movie, TV show or even another music video and is used again or even just changed a little bit. An example of this is Madonna's "Material Girl" which was intertextualised from "Gentleman Prefer Blondes".

   "Material Girl" - Madonna












"Gentleman Prefer Blondes"