Goodwins Theory

Who is Goodwin?
 - Andrew Goodwin was a director of music. He was also an organist at the Bangor Cathedral for 37 years.

 - Andrew has travelled widely both as a recitalist and as a music examiner.

 - He wrote a book, 'Dancing in the distraction factory' and he writes about what he defines as the characterisations of music videos...

... and he had 5 main principles leading up to his theory;


1. The relationship between the lyrics/music and the visuals.
Goodwin suggests that the visuals on screen match or have some recognition to what the lyrics are saying. The visuals will reinforce what the artist is saying. For example, in Griminal - Invincible, the lyrics depict a girl and boy in love using words words like "we" and "us" showing its personal and about a relationship. This is further emphasised on screen where the boy and girl are laying on the sofa, play fighting over the remote, and then they stop, close, with her hand on his face, looking into eachothers eyes. Not only this but the ring on her finger says love, when the lyric said is "love".

"Yeah that's true, invincible, yeah that's me that's you, matter fact scrap that girl that's us, we break up, we make up, but girl thats love"

-These are the lyrics spoken when this image is shown on screen.
-Therefore showing that the relationship between lyrics and visuals are close and related

The same would be for the music and the visuals, the fast or slow tempo/beat of the song, would go with the cuts and images on screen. For example Jessie J - Who you are is a very slow and moving song, and her video doesn't have many cuts in it. But there are many visuals that show the truth of the song. e.g. When she is inside, sitting in her bedroom and because the song gets very indepth and meaningful;, it starts to rain, and she doesn't notice. Although its raining, the lyrics are "its okai not to be okai" and this links with the phrase being under the weather, and as she is not okai, she is litterally under the weather.

2. The genre characteristics, (they are complex and diverse in terms of music video style and iconography).

These are dpicted as the certain trates associated with a particular music genre. For example a rock video you would expect to have the performance of a live band, showing the instruments, crazy stage dancing... For grime you would expect to have the following characteristics as a must; Jewelry, a narrative based story, hoods and 'urban' clothing such a s baggy tops as shown in soldier boy,

a trait of many grime songs are to percieve the artist as is he/she is just writing the music. This can be seen in Stan by Eminem.

Also to appeatr good looking and sexy is a characteristic adopted from R&B exampled in Pusscat dolls - I don't need a man, wearing as little clothes as possible, for sex appeal.

3. Voyeurism, (the objectification of women, systems of looking, screens within screens).

In most music videos, the artists or performers usually look directly into the camera, making the audience feel involved and have that personal connectivity.

 

There are a lot of times where in videos, especially male videos, the women in the songs have little clothes or are objetified, as this shows sex appeal to the male audience, it also gets more views without the viewers realising why that has been done. Rihanna does this alot in her music videos.

 

 

4. Intertextual references,either to other music videos or to TV/films.

The intertextual references relate to our typical storyline which is prominent throughout a huge range of texts, from other music videos, to films and even reality. This is effective for our audience in terms of relation as people can relate to the plotline and find gratification within the video as the story of a dysfunctional relationship is identifiable.

Most songs are about love, how nice it is when u have someone, or how bad it is when you lose them. Mariah Carey - Bye Bye ws a song that alot of peopl related to, and parts in the video, e.g. where she is looking at photographs, is usually what people do when they miss someone or want to remember them. She also looks at the camera a lot, communicating with the audience.

 

5. A lot of close-ups of the artists vocalists.

The record company demands a lot of close ups of the artists or performers in the video, it is a way od showing the audeince what the emotion is like in the song and the artists personality/emotions and ideology comes across.

Close ups in the music video also show intimacy. It promotes the start of the record label and repeats characteristics, like Lil Wayne.