Goodwin's theory

Andrew Goodwin's theory

Andrew Goodwin believed that lyrics made constant refrences to the visuals in music videos.  Visuals renforce what the lyrics say.  Goodwin said that music videos should ignore common narrative as it is important in their role of advertising. According to him music videos should coherent repeatability. Narrative and performance work hand in hand and makes it easier for the audience to watch over and over  without losing interest.

Andrew Goodwin identified 5 key aspects of music videos that we as an audience should look for:

* Thought beats- Where you 'see' in the sound

* Narrative and performance

* The star image

* Relation of visuals to song lyrics

* Technical aspects of a music video

Thought Beats – ‘Seeing’ the sound

To look at the music itself. Audience must take into account the structure of the song.

The voice of the song. The artists voice is extremely unique and can form indentification or trademakrs that work well with the star image. Roland Barthes theory of the Grain of voice can be related to this. Goodwin saw the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.

Goodwin points out the artists mode of address. Songs can be seen as stories and the artist the storyteller, making the music video a two communication device – them telling us a story and we listening.

Narrative & Performance

Songs fail to give us the complete narrative.We only tend to get a gist of the meaning of the song and then tend to make up our own idea of what is being told – An negociated view of a text. Goodwin explains that music videos should ignore common narrative. It is important in their role of advertising.

Music videos should coherent repeatability. Narrative and performance work hand in hand its make it easier for the audience to watch over and over without loosing interest.
The artist acting as both narrator & participant helps to increase the authenticity however the lip sync and other mimed actions remains the heart of music videos. The audience need to believe this is real.

‘Star Image’

The star image is another vital aspect of music videos. Meta narrative which is a big story that describes the development of the star over time, it has an important part to play in the music video production process.

Relation of Visuals to the song

there are three ways in which music videos work to promote a song;