2. Andrew Goodwin believes that pop videos
approach narrative in a different way to
novels and films therefore ideas such as
Todorov do not really apply. He pointed out
several reasons as to why there is a
different narrative structure.
3. • Pop videos are created around songs and tend to
steer away from traditional narrative structures e.g.:
normality-problem-solution
• The singer is used as both the narrator and as the
main character. This very rarely occurs in novels/films
• The singer directly addresses the audience by looking
straight into the camera. This is done to involve the
viewer at home with the performance
4. The theory confirms that music videos do
have some sort of closure/ending. When
the typical 3 minutes come to an
end, there is a reflection of the structure of
the particular song which builds a climax
or fades away after a constant repetition.
5. Songs don’t always match up to the visuals in
their videos. The occurrences and images
may go further than the original meaning.
Sometimes the video is made simply for
visual pleasure which encourages continuous
viewing. This does a good job of promoting
the music. It can also be that the videos
promote other commodities such as films.
There are three types of relations between
songs and videos:
6. Illustration – When the video
tells the story of the lyric
Amplification – When the
video introduces new
meanings that add layers
of meaning to the lyric
Disjuncture – When there is
little connection between the
lyric and video or where
there is a contradiction
between the two
7. In music videos women often appear as
objects of male desire. This is very
accurate in the case of the heavy metal
and hip hop genres. Female artists such
as Madonna and Beyonce tend to present
themselves for those of the opposite sex
to look at however the difference with
them is that they come across passive as
they address the viewers directly by
looking straight into the camera.
8. He also claims that music videos try to
appeal to a very wide audience while
ensuring the main targeting is to the core
target audience. Lastly, songs that are
used in films tend to have related images
in their music videos.
