Research into Dance-Pop

After finalising our choice of song for the music video we are producing for our A2 course work we identified its genre and have researched into various artists of the same genre and their music videos. The chosen genre is Dance-Pop and the song is ‘N N Neva Baby’ by Kesha, from researching Kesha we found that Katy Perry and Lady Gaga produce music within the same genre, each artist presenting a different spin and creative edge to the genre itself.

Katy Perry recently produced a very popular chart topping single, Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F) which was released with a creative, fun and imaginative music video to match the catchy and enthusiastic lyrics of the song. Katy Perry is known to be an idol for young girls and represented as a fun, down to earth celebrity, however, within this particular video Katy is represented as a young teenage girl, unknown to the stereotypical life of a teenager, drinking, partying and socialising, she initially comes across as a ‘nerdy’ shy girl, as the video continues this representation is completely changed and she becomes what we know as the common teenager which is stereotyped in today’s society.

The video itself has a fragmented story line to it, beginning with the morning after and then flicking back to the previous night where everything had happened and the story then flows smoothly from there on. Cleverly, the story has an entertaining comedy sketch throughout, mainly showing at the beginning and the end of the music video, this is thought to draw the audience in more and have a more effective edge to it rather than a video with a bland, or even no story line.

When it comes down to the music, visuals and lyrics, again, these had much thought behind them and it appears that they were taken into great consideration by the producers. Throughout the entire video the visuals and lyrics are linked extremely well, as the story is told through the lyrics of the song, each lyric is presented on screen by a series of actions from the cast, for example,  the line ‘This a hickey or a bruise?’ we see Katy Perry pull down a turtle neck jumper showing a bruise/hickey on her neck, another example could be the lyrics ‘There’s a stranger in my bed’ and the actions on screen showing Katy Perry looking blankly at a young man in the bed next to her. Moving on to the connection between the music and visuals, this again was used very well and created a smooth flow to the video, when watching the video we can clearly see as the tempo of the music beings to slow down the visuals on screen do the same.

After looking into Katy Perry and how she is represented throughout her video’s and how her video’s had been produced we decided to compare her style to another artist of the same genre to find similarities and differences between the two, therefore we looked into Lady Gaga and her music video of ‘Just Dance’.

Lady gaga had her first hit single ‘Just Dance’. In this video she turns up to a party where everyone is passed out. She then starts to play her music and sing, waking everyone up who then carry on partying all through the night. In this video she is represented as a popular, wild, sexy, strange, drunken party animal. She is represented as who she really is as a celebrity in real life; she is the queen of pop!

Lady Gaga’s video follows a fragmented storyline, it shows her singing on her own in a small corner and then goes to the house party, continuously flicking back to each scene. Throughout the video we are shown different party goers dancing & drinking and then Lady Gaga herself joining in and demonstrating a choreographed routine with two other women. The video is very attracting to the audience as there is always something happening, there is never a scene when the audience would look away.

When considering the music, visuals and lyrics we are shown numerous occasions when they associate with each other. The producers linked the lyrics and visuals in continuous scenes of dancing when Lady Gaga would sing the title words ‘Just Dance’. The use of music and lyrics helps to keep the song flowing and increases the audiences understanding due to this constant reference. Another link between the lyrics and visuals is when the song says, ‘where are my keys?, I lost my phone’ you can see 2 girls emptying their bags and looking through mess on the bed and table to obviously find their keys and phone.

There are many similarities and differences between these music video’s but the majority being similarities. Both artists are at house parties being represented as wild and drunk. They are the typical teenage party scenes. Both story lines are fragmented which keep the viewers pulled in and interested to watch. Finally, there are plenty of links within the music, lyrics and visuals. All of these factors are conventions of the genre, Dance-pop.

Digi Pak Conventions

Before an artist releases their album the albums digi pak must be produced, this is a very important process as it’s a major part of the advertisement. There are certain elements of the digi pak that are considered with great care, for example having the name of the artist and name of the album easy to recognise for buyers and keeping it eye catching to draw in the audience, it then needs to include the record company, track list, bonus features, recording and song information as well as having a creative edge to it. This incorporates the chosen image on the front of the digi pak, and then choosing any images that may be used on the rear of the album or even inside it. The colour and style have a large importance as this is what initially brings attention to the album itself, if it did not stand out, it would not be recognised. Although all of this necessary and sounds fairly simple, it is not, if the albums creative style does not fit the music’s target audience, it is more unlikely to sell as well.

A classic example of a high quality digi pak is the Beatles album, Live at the BBC. The main image clearly shows the band members and also brings across the time that the music was produced, being the year of 1994, this is done through the clothing worn in the image and the images editing,  i.e. the use of colour, being a range of browns and beiges with little, or no colour at all, as the Beatles were an extremely successful band there music is still played, performed and well known in today’s society, therefore if the album was to be brought today, we would still recognise it as an old album due to its artwork. Looking at the text, the band name is clearly presented in the top right corner in a bright white, allowing it to stand out, the text used is also the bands logo, along the bottom we can see the album name, written in a more elegant font, but still easy to spot and recognise. When opening the album there is a four picture unfold, each picture being one of the band members, this is a creative way to advertise the band members as individuals, rather then as a whole, which is what is normally done. The CD itself again has the Beatles logo, album name and a track list for the album, all this information is presented on an image printed on the CD, the image is a simple picture of an apple, bringing an abstract sense to the album. It also has additional information about the record company and a small print of the date of release. Looking at the back of the album it shows a simple track list for both disk’s 1 and 2, a standard barcode and then the producer information, record labels, copy right policies and again the date of release. The recording company is Apple corporations, fitting in with the apple image on the disk. Also we can see the band name, logo and album name again repeated on this side of the digi pak. The overall style of the digi pak allows an audience to recognise the music’s genre and the style of the band, bringing in the correct target audience.

The Conventions of Advertisement

As well as Rock and R ‘n’ B there is also the Hip Hop genre. A magazine advert can be the main selling point for a CD, you can straight away tell the genre which will give you a rough idea of what the music will sound like. Different genres will have different ways to show there unique music, artists such as Tinie Tempah and Olly Murs have two completely diverse styles and these are shown by things such as their clothes and colour used on their add. Tinie Tempah who is from the hip hop genre will use vibrant colours such as when advertising his music, this could include having his name in bold writing along with the albums name as he does in his magazine advert for his album Disc-Overy. Many Hip Hop artists have stage names as Tinie Tempah does; his real name is actually Patrick Chukwuemeka Okogwu but for an artists such as himself this would not suit his genre. Like CD covers the albums date of release and featuring songs will be included within the add along with the record companies name or logo. As appose to genres such as Rock, Country and Reggae, Hip Hop attracts generations from all over the world and can relate to many teenagers who aspire to become a musician.

A genre which is contrast with Hip Hop would be country music, the two genres have hardly any relations and the advertisements look very different. Country music adverts will usually be set in an outdoor location where as Hip Hop is often in a disguised location or on a set with a black/white background. Artists such as Kenny Rogers are famous within there own genre but might be unknown to many younger generations who are not interested in country music.

The Conventions of Advertisment

In contrast to the rock genre R ‘n’ B advertisement in a magazine uses completely different conventions, particularly the font tends to differ and the genre R ‘n’B use the effect of very bold sometimes 3D fonts to  portray an album . These fonts are used to show the name of the band or artist or the album name and even used when advertising featured songs that may be included in the album. Within the r ‘n’ b genre there’s a wide variety of artists all with their individual style, therefore each album and artist uses a complete different image to represent the music they create. For example ne-yo’s used an image of himself incorporated in a busy city whereas N-Dubz have used a basic portrait of themselves with a simple background. However the majority of r ‘n’ b artist will always use a self image as a form of advertisement. R 'n' B use a variety of colours to advertise their music and dont have a set colour scheme. The style generally tends to be vibrant and clear and very 'in your face'. Sometimes R'n'B magazines use ratings as a way to attract an audiance.

The Conventions of a Digipak

Rihanna’s digipak consists of 3 panels which contain 5 photos all of herself, on the right hand side we are shown a low angle shot of her standing in between a door way with the light relfecting of the door, this specific pose symbolizes her dominance. On the left hand side we are shown a background image of Rihanna leaning against the door way with a paragraph of writing. Rihanna also uses the space on the digipak to advertise her previous digipak/albums to show that they are still available for purchase.
The paragraph we are shown is writing about herself and her music to help relate to her target audience, the intriguing white writing helps attract the audience and makes them want to read it. The digipak includes subtle colours such as bronze, orange and brown which give a sense of warmth within the music which also relates to another of her albums which we are shown at the bottom left of the left hand side cover. The digipak can fold back together to become an overall of a panel and includes the symbol of her record companies’ logo, the CD itself shows her name and the albums title at the top again containing the record companies logo.
The clothes Rihanna is wearing fits in well with her certain genre, the cream dress is very revealing as it shows her bikini top and is very short, this shows that although Rihanna is admired by young girls she may be looking to gain male attention as well. Rihanna’s poses show a sense of mystery as she has her hair covering part of face and eyes in the two main photos but also in two of her other albums.
Many artists of this genre tend to show a lot of skin which will reveal their figures as size and shape is important to many women and girls.

Even on the front cover of the digipak we are shown her record companies name yet again which is Star Mark and the writing of the front cover is the same as on her CD. We are also shown the songs which are indcluded in the CD

The Conventions of Advertisement

A magazine add will immediately show the genre of the music through its visual images, this allows the audience to recognise the genre before reading into it. Every music genre will have an individual way of showing their own signature across their work and presenting it within the albums advertisement. Taking rock for example, it often uses Gothic texts which stand out immediately on a page or any bold outstanding text. This is usually incorporated in the name of the band and the album name.  The rock genre usually uses dark and gloomy colours, therefore the advertisement will also use these colours, such as black, deep red and a range of browns and dark blues. Like all album advertisements the date of release, record company and featuring songs will also be incorporated within the magazine add. In contrast to genre’s such as RnB and Hip-Hop, Rock often has dark and moody images, sometimes including a sense of violence creating an atmosphere that will compliment the album. Also, after looking at various Rock album adverts i have noticed that an old, authentic look is very popular within this genre. Some good examples of this are shown below.

Here we can see the use of dark colours, a moody image of a devil like creature, and the use of a bold, authentic looking text. We can also see that all the necessary information has been clearly stated towards the bottom of the advert.

This is a prime example of an advertisement using the rusty, authentic take to it, the background to the album appears to be old and aged, cleverly the gothic style font has been incorporated very well and the use of roman numerals has created a unique spin to the album.

Analysis of magazine advert

This is Ed Sheeran’s latest released debut album cover.

• The artist name is printed on the front (Ed Sheeran) in bold white writing and the name of the album (The debut album)
• This cover does not tell us the exact date of release but it is showing us that it's ‘out now’
• The artists style is not clearly portrayed as it’s just a picture of his face, but you can tell he is contemporary by his haircut.
• It shows the form of release along the bottom of the advertisement, which also shows where it is being sold- ‘iTunes, amazon, hmv, Play and Tesco.
• The main image on this cover is a photograph of Ed Sheeran’s face which has been fazed into the orange background
• The set colour scheme for this cover is orange, this colour stands out to all members of the public and to Ed Sheeran's fans. This orange colour could represent the music inside the album as being mellow, calm and warm or viberant, upbeat and loud.

This is an advertisement of The Game’s new album ‘LAX’

• In this advertisement the name of the artist is clearly printed at the top in red writing saying ‘the game’.  The album name is also clearly printed underneath in red and white writing saying ‘The new album LAX’.
• The date of album release is stated in capital letters ‘AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE 7.22.08’.
• The artists style and image is portrayed through this advertisement as being hip-hop and RnB. We can see this by the he is leaning against a wall wearing drop-down jeans and his boxers hanging out. This is now common fashion for younger generations.
• This cover shows featuring songs and artists it shows the song ‘Game’s Pain’ is included and includes songs with ‘Keyshia Cole’, 'Lil Wayne', Busta Rhymes' and 'Common'.

Hype Williams

Harold 'Hype' Williams was born in 1970, Queens New York. Hype Williams is a well known auteur who has an amazing history of artists that he has worked with, such as Kanye West, B.I.G, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Alicia Keys. Hype’s creative vision and signature style that is spread across each one of his music video’s is what lead him to the top, being one of the current most well known auteurs. This creative vision and spin to his work became visible through the contrasting colours he uses, the abstract transitions and the actors and actresses he uses. Hype works specifically in the Hip-Hop and R’n’B genre’s. He is well known for the trend of attractive, good looking and physically fit actors and actresses that appear in his video’s. Furthermore, Hype often uses many contrasting colours bringing a lot more energy and atmosphere to the music video’s he produces, also, adding to his unique style Hype uses a wide range of transitions, adding effects into each, which many producers will not risk doing, this brings a lot of attention towards the screen and to what is happening within the video. These are just a few examples of the way Hype uses his extraordinary unique and recognisable style to draw in an audience. Hype is a music video and film director descended from African American background. His slang name, Hype, comes from his over-hyperactivity as a child. His passion for Graffiti is what first brought across his interest in colour and art which can be seen in his creative music videos. He has received many awards in the past for his creativity and style within his work, such as ‘Best director of the year’ and ‘Best group video’.

A signature style used by Hype Williams involved placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include "Diamonds on my Neck" by Smitty, "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "In My Hood" by Young Jeezy, and many others.

Another signature style used by Williams throughout the vast majority of his videos was the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. This was used in video’s such as "Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes and "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" by Missy Elliott.

Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, and Beyonce’s ‘Video phone’

Compare and Contrast Analysis

The music video we chose to study is that recorded by Taylor Swift called the story of us which shows a linear narrative. The video is set in a school library which refers to the title of the video, throughout this short piece the use of props plays a big part as words that are sung relate to sentences in some books which were being read. When signing “is it killing you like its killing me?” a book is being read which shows the words “killing me” and when Taylor sings the words “next chapter” she holds a book to the camera which reads next chapter. This video contains links between lyrics and visual which are clear to all members of the audience, such as when she sings “searching the room for an empty place” she is looking around the busy library looking for a seat. In this video a wide variety of camera shots have been used to create the different effects of emotion. Close ups have been used to enhance the lyrics of the song when emphasis needed to be related to the characters emotions and feelings. Other shots such as mid shots were regularly used throughout the video to provide the viewers with a good understand of the location and setting. The use of lighting has a profound effect on the way an image is perceived, this specific video uses rays of natural light through the windows instead of artificial side lights. During this video the use of dieagectic sound has been used when two of the characters have a conversation which is clearly seen but not heard. The costumes seen are simply what we would expect in a modern day American school, and fits in very well as the uses of dull colours shows that the song is not about happiness but about the upsetting relationship between two characters. The female characters all have subtle make up and average hair, this is what would expect from pupils in a high school and the males have an everyday modern hair style.
  
The genre of Taylor Swifts music video is pop, in contrast with this we have chosen to also study N-Dubz ft Mr Hudsons playing with fire which has a hip hop/R 'n' b genre.



This music video follows a fragmented narrative as although it is telling us 4 stories we are all shown the group and featuring artist standing together singing to the camera in between many shots. The beginning of this video starts by using a close up shot of the artists followed by their names underneath, the video is mainly filmed in an outdoor location at night although 2 different apartments were used to follow the narrative. It shows major locations by using high angle shots of the artists with places such as the London Bridge in the background and includes a bird’s eye view over the river Thames and its surrounding estates. One mid shot shows Tulisa singing whilst having artificial lights reflecting off the river in the back ground, this type of lighting was the only one used as it was filmed at night, the street lights became a common effect throughout the video. The colours in the song related to the music as they were singing about their partners being unfaithful so they all wore black outfits which symbolise their unhappiness. Hair and make-up were also kept to a minimal with the males with one artists wearing sunglasses throughout the video and another wearing a hat, which is a trade mark for this certain male, for the only women artists her hair was down and bright blonde, with vibrant blue eye shadow. Links between lyrics and visuals were common throughout this video, some of the major ones stood out more than others, such as when the words “playing with fire” were sung sparkling flames were shot up from around where the artists were standing. Another noticeable link is when Mr Hudson uses dieagectic sound whilst on the phone and sings the lyrics “call you back later” you see him mutter the words and then lower the phone from his ear whilst starting to follow another woman. Towards the end of the video, whilst singing the final chorus it shows us the use of a reverse cut when merging two scenes into one, which show the female artist in front of the men then the males in front of her. This video refers to modern day videos which involve more elaborate and meaningful lyrics, many people can relate to this.

After analysing the two different music videos a Taylor swift music video from the genre pop and  an n-Dubz video from the genre R ‘n’ B/ hip hop we can see that there are some similar aspects between the videos but there are also some very different codes and conventions used. Both videos use a variety of camera shots and camera angles to add effect to their videos, the N-Dubz video from the genre R ‘n’ B/ hip hop uses more camera angles for example high angle shots and close ups which are used to show a person being more important or less important these camera angles are common for this genre. Whereas Taylor swift’s pop music video uses more mid shots and wide shots frequently to show the next part of the story in the video.  Another shot which was very noticeable was the use of a birds eye view shot in the N-Dubz video which again is common in R ‘n’ B type music videos used to create dramatic effect. These type of shots used in both videos have been specifically chosen to fit that genre, as the Taylor swift video displays a linear narrative the shots used are similar and continuous,  while the N-Dubz video has a fragmented narrative the use of the camera has been chosen more widely and contains a variety of different shots creating certain effects. Not only can we see the different types of camera shots but the mis en scene has also been chosen to suit the genre. In Taylor swift’s pop video the costume is chosen very much to fit the narrative and also subtle hair and makeup is used compared to the N-Dubz R ‘n’ B genre this video consist of girls makeup being more vibrant and costumes are chosen to fit the audiences perception of a modern London artists style. Other differences include the location and the lighting which again were very different depending on the genre, Taylor swift’s pop video used natural lights, whereas N-Dubz R ‘n ’B video used a lot of artificial lights, again this is what we would expect to see. In relation to the setting Taylor swift’s pop video uses locations based inside a school to fit the narrative and N-Dubz R ‘n’ B video have a wider range of locations outside and inside. Overall these two videos helped us to see the difference between certain genres which are commonly used. This will help us to decide what codes and conventions we should use when deciding on the genre of our own music video.

Autuer Theory

The term Auteur comes from France and translates into Author, which means that a director’s film reflects their creative vision. This can also be the case for music videos.

The music video would show signs of excessive use of directors own visual perceptions through the use of signatures.

An Auteur is a film maker who style and practices is distinctive who creates a signature status for them. It is also a film maker who has personal, signature styles and keeps creative control over his work.

Auteur Theory- Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze, born Adam Spiegel is American director, producer and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. Spike Jonze’s trade mark consists of his films/ music videos being off beat in their visual story telling, particularly in their mix of live-action, animation and puppetry. Jonze was also responsible for directing and writing the famous Beastie Boys: Sabotage as well as directing 6 of their other music videos and writing 2 more. He also frequently collaborates with other music artists such as Weezer, Kanye West and Björk. At the age of 32 Spike Jonze directed the video for Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” this video contains a small amount of cuts, only 32. Jonze mainly focuses on directing/producing films and repeatedly casts actors/actress such as Casey Storm, Iance Acord, Carter Burwell, Chris Cooper, Charlie Kaufman, Catherine Keener and Eric Zumbrunnen. He was a producer and so-creator of the MTV television series Jackass and Jackass: The Movie, also directing some of their segments. Spike Jonze often films some of the ultimate skateboarding scenes, 2 of these became very well known- Blind’s 1991 ‘VideoDays’ and Girl’s 2003 ‘Yeah Right!’ as well as 9 others ranging from 1989-2008.

Michel Gondry - An Inspiring Auteur

Michel  Gondry is an academy award winning filmmaker and creative auteur, his work includes being a commercial director, music video director and screenwriter. As an auteur he has an inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scene, his works are marked with a child-like explorative eye, we are told that like old school hip-hop, Gondry’s films are his playground, he draws in his audience with his creative spin which appears on all his work. This unique approach to visual art was a collaboration of elements and ideas generated by Gondry and the musicians with whom he worked.  In 1993 Michael Gondry produced the unforgettable solo debut for Bjork, Human Behaviour, between then and now he has redefined the entire music video genre, rearranging classic film techniques in ingenious ways. He has now worked with some of the worlds most famous and popular artists, his ground braking video’s were produced for artists such as Foo Fighters, Bjork, The Rolling Stones, Kylie Minogue and Daft Punk, these music video’s have won him every music award available, and he is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the director of the commercial that has won the most prizes in the world. Most recently, Michel directed videos for The White Stripes and Kanye West. Michel Gondry’s trade mark throughout all his video’s are his surreal settings and visuals, this too being his signature among his work.

Scopitones

Scopitone films are the early 1960s forerunners to today's music videos.  They were distributed on colour 16mm film with a magnetic soundtrack, and were made to be shown on Scopitone film jukeboxes. The first Scopitones were made in France around 1960, and the Scopitone craze spread throughout Europe (particularly in West Germany and England) before moving over the Atlantic to the United States in the mid-1964.  By the end of the sixties, Scopitones were a thing of the past and all the crazes had died down. Unlike Soundies, Scopitones were filmed in colour which allowed audiences to see artists more vibrantly with a better view unlike the standard black and white broadcasts of the 1960’s. Scopitones and Soundies are very similar in production, however Soundies did not play on a Scopitone jukebox. Scopitones are often referred to as the ancestors to today’s music video’s. Scopitones played mainly unknown artists who sang English songs, like the Soundies, giving them a lot more publicity.

Soundies

Back in 1941 before modern day television such as MTV there were Soundies these were a hit for around 5 years and slowly became unknown after 1946. They were produced in New york, Chicago and Hollywood. These were three minute black-and-white musical films featuring artists from the era of Big Band, Jazz and Swing introducing famous Musicians such as Count Basie, Louis Jordan, Les Paul and Calloway, and they often included short dance sequences. It helped create careers for Doris Day + Nat King Cole among many other. It would cost a dime to view these Soundies through a movie jukebox called a Panoram they were located in night clubs, bars, restaurants, factory lounges, amusement centers and other public places. They were especially popular for spreading performances of African-American artists who were blocked from performing in other public formats. Soundies relate to today’s music videos as they started to join music and image lasting today’s average time of a music video which is 3 minutes. These classic short films remain as time capsules of music, social history, popular culture, and tell the story of a crossroad in our country, when the uncertainties of war, race relations, and emerging technologies combined to write one of the most influential chapters in our history. Soundies were produced by various companies such as Minoco and RCM Productions, headed by FDR's son James Roosevelt, Sam Coslow a song writer and Herbert Mills, a pioneer in the development of arcade music machines. Soundies covered all genres of music, from classical to big-band swing, and from hillbilly novelties to patriotic songs.

Music Video History - Experimental Film

Experimental film began in the 1920’s, a small number of people were interested in experimental films, they were characterised as having a non-linear narrative. They were known as an individual genre with its own codes and conventions, these being; abstract images, out of focus images and rapid editing.  The main goal for experimental films are often to place the viewer in a more active and thoughtful relationship to the film. Experimental film is its own music video genre in itself and is still around today, in the 1960’s the longest experimental film was created being 8 hours long. Experimental films then led to the production of Soundies and Scopitones. Most films are made on very low budgets, self-financed or financed through small grants, with a small crew or, often a crew of only one person which would be the filmmaker.

Goodwin's analysis on 'TikTok' by kesha.


We found that all Goodwins elements apply to this music video.

• Lyrics and visuals. E.g When it says 'Wake up in the morning', it shows her waking up in a bath. 'brush my teeth' she grabs a toothbrush. 'pedicure on our toes' it shows her perfectly painted toes. 'tipsy' the screen had a blurred, smeared effect representing being tipsy.
• Genre characteristics. This genre is Dance pop. In this video, it shows the traits of dance pop such as, rapping, pounding dance upbeats, a cathy melody, heavy partying and dancing. These sort of things you will find in almost every dance pop genre music videos.
• Notions of looking. In this video, the main character is the singer herself, Kesha. She is visualised and represented as a rebel, party animal, fun, reckless and wild. This represents most women these days in our modern society.
• Intertextual reference. this text refers to two other media texts such as P Diddy and Mcjagger. She refers to P Diddy with the opening lyrics of 'wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy'. You can then hear p Diddy's voice say 'Hey whatup girl'. She later says 'kick 'em to the kurb unless they look like Mcjagger'. A look-a-like of Mcjagger then comes on screen and she gets in his car and they have fun, partying all the way to a big party.
• Demands on Label. The label have developed Kesha to have the image of being a fun, crazy, wild, reckless party animal.
• Structure. This music video has a linear narrative structure. It tells a story of her daily partying life from the morning until night time. It starts at when she wakes up in the morning, gets ready for the day, skips breakfast, leaves the house, rides down the street and gets a boom box, waits by a wall with the music, meets mcjagger and gets in his car, goes to a party, parties all night then finally falls asleep in a bath like the night before.

Goodwin Analysis - David Guetta - Sexy Chick

After analysing David Guetta’s hit song Sexy Chick in accordance to Goodwins theory we found that out of the seven elements the music video to sexy chick uses four of the seven. These being;

Performance, narrative and concept based music video’s – This particular video is both narrative and performance based, the video begins telling a linear story and follows through to footage of a live performance, however the video is cleverly put together and the live footage follows the story line.

Links between visuals and music – The lyrics to the song are represented well by the visuals within the video, the lyrics ‘damn she’s a sexy chick’ is represented by a group of good looking women in bikini’s throughout the video. Another major link is the line ‘She needs to slow down’ during this everything becomes slow motion even though what’s happening on screen is very upbeat. There are also smaller links that connect to very few words but have a lot of emphasis on what happens, for example during ‘neighbourhood whore’ the visuals show a girl kissing a boy before entering a party full of other attractive males.

Genre Characteristics – The song genre of this song is House music, the traits associated with house music is often very full on, taking place in heavy parties and a younger generation’s music, this video represents each one of these extremely well, everyone taking place in the video are young, the video consists of two parties, one being private and the other in a very busy and lively club fitting the role of house music.

Notions of Looking – In the modern day a lot of young girls that would be around celebrities are portrayed as slim, pretty and perfect, the girls within this video fit each of these, as would be expected. They look and act as if they’re there for show and nothing much more, within the video the ratio of men to women was very low enhancing the fact of a strong dominant male with control over the girls.


All of these components added together create a very exciting and interesting music video that attracts a large audience.

Goodwins Theory

Andrew Goodwin came up with a theory based on seven different elements towards music video’s and the way they are created, Goodwin stated that music video’s are associated with:

1.       Links between lyrics and music-

2.       Links between music and visuals-

·         Goodwin suggest lyrics will constantly refer  to visuals on screen, visuals will reinforce what the lyrics say (Beyonce- single ladies)

3.       Genre characteristics-

·         These are the depicted as the certain traits associated with a particular music genre, for example, Rock, Pop, RnB and Rap.

4.       Intertextual reference-

·         The way in which texts refer to other media texts that producers assume audiences will recognise.

·         Music videos are one medium, which relies heavily on intertextuality to achieve a particular effect. For instance, referring to other videos, film, TV programmes of other media texts.

5.       Notions of looking-

·         Notions of looking plays on the idea of gaze and the way characters are visualized and represented.

·         For example, the female character as an object.

·         Notions of looking however is not just restricted to women, it may also represent men in particular as gangster, cheats.

6.       Performance, narrative, and concept based music videos-

·         Performance- for example takes from live performances/ does not have a particular story

·         Narrative- linear, tells a story from start to end. Fragmented- tells a story not necessarily in the right order

7.       Demands of the record label-

·         The record label has a control over the artists they sign.

·         Artists may develop a motif which would recur across their work. Beyonce- independent women image,- band women- dancers usually women- lyrics about being in dependant.

·         Such demand can be made by the record label E.g. to develop a single image, sexy image.

Goodwins analysis- Ed Sheeran - A Team

Ed Sheeran- Class A Team.


We watched this music video and found 5 out of 7 of Goodwins elements in it. These consist of:

• Lyrics and visuals: E.g When he says 'go mad for a couple grams', the action shown is her paying money to a man and him handing a gram of drugs over to her. Also when he says, 'it's too cold outside for angels to fly', a sign is shown saying 'improving the angel'.
• Demands on label. Each one of Ed Sheeran's music videos carry on the theme of black and white. His video's also consist of other people, he isn't the main object of the video's. This develops a single image by the label of Ed Sheeran.
• Notions of looking. In this video the woman is visualised and represented as a victim of drugs, homelessness and prostitution exactly as what would be expected in today's world.
• Structure. This music video has a fragmented structure. It shows a story but not in order of when it happens. Such as, in the beginning it shows her dead, then goes on to show what she's done in her life but at different points.