Thursday 24 September 2009

Music Theory- Andrew Goodwin


I have decided to study Andrew Goodwin for my theory work and compare his theory to the video "Check up on it" by Beyonce Knowles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_EL_SHI7ig&feature=related

Andrew Goodwin discovered certain factors in music videos such as relationships between the lyrics and visuals, genre-related style and iconography present, voyeurism and multiple close-up shots of the artist. These theories specifically relate with the video i have decided to analyze, especially the point that was made about voyeurism.
First of all, the opening of the video begins with a clip from the movie "The Pink Panther" suggesting the song lyrics relate well with the movie which is why it is the soundtrack. This proves the point about the lyrics relating with the visuals due to this song being a movie soundtrack. A lot of voyeurism is exposed throughout the video when beyonce is dancing and revealing shots of her body in small pieces of clothing whilst performing. This is used to increase the video's attractiveness, particularly to males and will also be using the female body as a major selling point. No intertextuality is used in the video, even though the movie itself is humorous. Frequent close-up shots of Beyonce have been used throughout the video, also relating with Andrew Goodwin's point. These are used so that the artist can represent themselves as a 'celeb' to gain publicity. Throughout the video the mise en scene is mostly pink, including the costumes, the background and the effects at the top and bottom of the screen. This theme specifically relates with the movie "The Pink Panther" to reveal the relationship between her music and visuals(the movie). Because the genre of the song is R&B, it mainly proves Goodwin's points as it is an up to date video which relates with a movie. Andrew Goodwin suggested that music videos lacked visual components which was a symptom of not listening carefully enough. This realtes with this video due to all the shots being mainly performance, attracting the audience to watch it, however, not paying as much attention to the lyrics used. Andrew Goodwin also suggested that "Many artists stress the importance of the vocal in their videos" which corresponds to the close-up shots of Beyonce whilst she peforms the chorus of the song. Goodwin argued that the repitition of a specific lyric or rhyme will make the song more memerable, and therefore increase the sales. The repitition of "check up on it" throughout the song could have also been used to sound catchy and memerable towards the public audience. In conclusion, this video relates well with Goodwins theory as it focuses on many of his main points, especially when he talks about the close up shots and the relationship between a movie and the music video soundtrack.

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