Music Theory

Music video theory

John Goodwin believed that for a music video to be recognised and successful it must have 6 features to it. These we’re;
• Genre Characteristics – Every genre of music has a certain Characteristics, for example, a heavy metal video might have a lot of performance shots, and a pop video may have lots of dance scenes.
• Relationship between lyrics and visual – this means that whats happening in the video must have something to do with the lyrics so it has at least some narrative based scenes.
• Relationship between music and visuals – Whatever tempo or beat of music should be shown in the visuals. For example, calm music shown have calm acting.
• Lots of close up shots – including the artists, props, motifs. There should be some kind of visual style.
• Frequent notion to looking and treatment of the female body – seeing things from different perspectives, For example through a telescope, seeing things more clearly. Studying of the female body.
• Intertextual references – Should link to something else such as a film, tv or other music video.
I agree with these ideas, that the visuals should link to the music and the lyrics and that the intertextual references help the audience to understand the stoy maybe etc. However, for a music video to include all of these factors is very hard and rare to find. One video that contains all of this is “The Kill” by 30 Seconds to Mars. I analysed the video only looking for these 6 elements and here is what i found.
Genre Characteristics
• Rock band wearing all black
• Lots of performance shots
Relationship between visuals and lyrics
• “I tried to be someone else” whilst looking at the person identical to him
Relationship between visuals and music
• The way Jared Leto sings in the chorus when the tempo of the music builds up becomes more aggressive, as if he is shouting down the microphone
• Playing the instruments also becomes more flamboyant, For example, swinging guitars around. As if they were performing a real gig.

Lots of close ups
• There are many close up’s of Jared Leto singing.
• Close ups of objects that possibly have meanings behind them
Looking/female body
• At one point a woman comes out the shower to kiss one of the members of the band
• When Jared Leto see’s himself, he is looking into what is essentially him, just from a different perspective.
Intertextual references
• The whole video is based around the classic horror movie “The Shining”. It includes many scenes from the movie, including the room number and not to go in the room, being in charge of a hotel over a winter, the two girls, one member of the band sits behind the bar and although we never see the bar person, it is still a very noticeable scene, which is used in the video
• Another reference could be when he is throwing the ball against the wall, it could be a reference to “The Great Escape” where steve McQueen throws the ball against the wall as he is trapped and it kills time. This could be a reference to feeling trapped in the hotel.
The video was an extreme success and has achieved over 30 million views on YouTube. So as this video contained everything that was believe to make a good video by Goodwin, then his theory is very accurate and correct.
I tried to analyse other music videos such as “That Golden Rule” by Biffy clyro but only met 4 of the criteria. Other videos I tried to see if they would fit in with the specification we’re Enter Shikari, Radiohead, Arctic monkeys ect but only 3 or 4 we’re met. I do think the theory is a good one, and that if it includes all criteria it is a success, however, finding a video which included everything was fairly difficult as not many videos actually do contain all the factors Goodwin thought would make a successful video so although it is the recipe for a successful video, it also makes a rare and complicated video.