The Music Industry – the how and why to studying music videos
Following on from his article on MTV in MediaMagazine 6, Steve Archer suggests five essential
criteria which should help you to evaluate whether that ultra-cool new video really does justice to
the music, or whether it’s just a glorified marketing tool.
Studying music video – some suggestions
Pessimists often complain that music video television has made pop superficially image-based. But
my description of MTV and music video in MediaMag 6 failed to address what is still its most central
and significant element, beyond the control of MTV, Viacom and Motorola: the appeal and power of
pop sounds!
I’d like to suggest that the sounds are the basis of a process of visualisation that serve to enhance,
not restrict, the original pop sound effect. Pop music theorist Andrew Goodwin claims that a good
music video is:
a clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new
ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations.
Dancing in the Distraction Factory
If we accept the theory that pop songs on their own are not enough to create sufficient meaning and
pleasure in the audience, the ‘added value’ of star image created by CD covers, live performance and
music videos can be enough to inspire the consumer to buy into the whole intensely romantic myth
of it all – and therefore actually buy the pop music.
Certainly, the whole music business is sustained by the few star guarantees of profit in an unstable
market. This maybe explains the somewhat fetishistic behaviour of fans who will buy the CD even if
they can easily get the tracks for free on some P2P provider – we want all the packaging, the
sacrosanct details in the booklet, the assurance it really belongs to us, not just the ‘stacking up’ of
sounds that is the song itself. However, I am keen to keep these sounds as the primary pleasure and
driving force of the music industry. This focus, therefore, is reflected in the order of my ‘Top Five
Things to Look for’ when deciding if a music video is any good.
Five things to look for …
I’ve turned the ideas in Goodwin’s book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, into checklist form for
you to test out on the current crop of music videos.
At number 1 ... ‘Thought Beats’ or seeing the sounds in your head
The basis for visualising images comes from a psychological process called synaesthesia, where you
picture sounds in your mind’s eye. This idea is absolutely central to understanding music video as
they build on the soundtrack’s visual associations in order to connect with the audience and provide
that additional pleasure.
To use this approach you need to start with the music, sorting out the way the song works, taking
into account the way it has been stacked up with sound. To begin, lyrics don’t need to be analysed
word for word like a poem but rather considered for the way they introduce a general feeling or
mood. Very rarely do song lyrics have a coherent meaning that can be simply read off; but they are
important in at least creating a sense of subject matter. So key phrases or lines (and especially those
repeated in the chorus) will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song.
Here, Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of voice’ is relevant – this sees the singing voice more as
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an expressive instrument, personal, unique even, to the singer, like a fingerprint, and therefore able
to create associations in itself. The voice of a song may even possess trademarks that work hand-inhand with the star image – so Michael Jackson’s yelp is a trademark sound that immediately sets him
apart from other singers.
Finally, if songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes music videos
stand out on TV, as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible ‘fourth wall’
of television narration. Goodwin interestingly compares pop singers to stand-up comics in the way
the personal trademark or signature dominates the performance. The music – or arrangement of the
song, including instrumentation, the mix and effects, including samples – generally works with the
lyrics and grain of voice. Generally we can look at key sounds, like the tempo (or speed of the song)
and structure of the song in terms of verse and chorus. To give an example of how instruments can
create visual associations, the slow twang of the steel guitar could create geographically-based visual
associations from the Deep South of the US – a desert plain, a small town, one road out, men
chewing tobacco … We all share a memory bank of popular culture imagery (intertextuality), a sense
of shared cultural history without which these references would make no sense. Places, people,
feelings, situations leading to mini-narratives – all these can be summoned from the sounds of
popular music.
These visualisations can arise from more personal, individual responses, sometimes even tied to a
place or part of your own autobiography, the specific details of your life story and emotions. A
combination of these shared and personal images tied to the words and instrumentation form the
basis of music video creativity.
At number 2 … Narrative and performance
Songs rarely tell complete narratives; we are used to studying them with other visual texts like film.
The narrative fuzz in songs affects the way stories are used in music video representations of a
song’s meaning (see number 4 on page 22 for more on this). So, often we get the suggestion of a
story, a hint at some kind of drama unfolding.
There is another important reason why music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative, and that
is their role in advertising. Music videos need to have repeatability built in to them. We need to be
able to watch them repeatedly in a more casual way, with a looser approach to their storytelling. I’d
suggest that more important than narrative is the way that performance is used in video clips, a
point I’ll look at again in number 3. Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a
performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part
of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the
‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as
narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-sync close-up and the mimed playing of
instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick
it. Remember that pop music is a romantic art, all about truth, talent, and magic, so we need to
believe in the authenticity of the performance first and foremost (which is why, in their effort to win
our respect and affections, we get so much eye-rolling, gesturing and sweat from the wannabes of
Pop Idol and Fame Academy). The supposed individual and original qualities of these performers
leads me to my next point, the source of all profit in the business … the star!
At number 3 … The star image
The music business relies on the relatively few big name stars to fund its activities; it usually fails to
connect with popular audiences – only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes
any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an
important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term that
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describes the development of the star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.
Michael Jackson – a mini case study
Michael Jackson’s meta-narrative has been a long, sometimes difficult journey and one he has lost
control of in recent years. There have been a few crucial moments in Jackson’s meta-narrative of
pop stardom. The first was the successful move from being one of a group – even if acknowledged as
its central talent – as child member of The Jackson 5, to becoming a solo artist. He was then able to
negotiate one of the most successful solo careers ever through developing both his trademark sound
and image. The ground-breaking music videos for Thriller and Beat It were an important part of this
mega-stardom. At some point in the 90s, though, this meta-narrative took a wrong turn and his
unique ‘star image’ became ‘freakish’ and self-indulgent; we are reminded that this child star has
never grown up. Thus, the Jackson talent, his natural birthright it seems, becomes the reason for his
adult weirdness. His younger self – black, funky, energetic – is constantly held up to condemn his
current abnormality – withdrawn, of no ethnicity, over-produced to the point of ceasing to exist.
And yet, all this means he is still talked about, the object of mass media fascination and so, in a very
real sense, still a star. Whether the most recent allegations of child abuse will finally render that
stardom invalid remains to be seen.
Meta-narratives of star image are not simply a matter of manipulation, but a dialogue or negotiation
of what the music business asserts about their star, and what we accept! Still, in each new video,
Michael Jackson tries to regain control over his meta-narrative but he can’t just switch off all the
different associations he’s accumulated during his career, whether good or bad. So music videos can
best be seen as one of the most important ways that the image of the artist is ‘managed’.
At number 4 … Three ways in which music videos relate visuals to the song
We can identify three ways in which music videos work to support or promote the song. These are
illustration, amplification and disjuncture and I find them extremely useful in attempting to
generalise the effects of individual music videos.
• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set
of images. Here, then, is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation,
with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.
• However, as with all advertising, the most persistent type of video adds to the value of the song.
Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video Auteur, the director as artist, and an
increasingly common way to view music video creatives (VH-1’s Best 100 Videos clearly placed Spike
Jonze in the Auteur category with his work always amplifying the original song’s meaning and effect,
usually through surreal humour). Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the
fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop
ideas, rather than fundamentally changing them.
• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that (normally intentionally) seem to
work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical
technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality. Usually,
disjuncture videos of this type don’t make a lot of sense and may be based on abstract imagery. For
example in Spike Jonze’s video for Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’ we see a man with a dog’s head and his arm
in a cast walking round New York, ignored by all, with dialogue completely unrelated to the song
itself. Sometimes though, disjuncture videos are just bad, ill-conceived and self-indulgent mistakes.
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And finally at number 5 ... Technical aspects of music video
The last really essential aspect of music video to study is technical. This includes camerawork,
movement and angle, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound. It is important to remember the more
general features of music videos already mentioned when trying to work out the technical effects,
especially those which are post-production, effects. Broadly, the technical conventions can be
summed up as follows:
1. Speed! Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects.
– Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers.
– Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music
video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to
understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times (repeatability).
– Post-production digital effects – a staple of music video where images can be colorized, multiple
split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again.
Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static
shots. This kind of editing – like Sinead O’Conner’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – is striking and effective
in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.
2. Meat! The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer’s face. This is
because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.
3. Beats! Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the
beat or key rhythm.
4. Lighting and colour may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from
lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the
song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any
change in the mise-en-scène or camerawork can signal the same type of thing.
5. Mise-en-scène – obviously the setting for music videos is important, often to guarantee the
authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scène for many music videos is the
concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice
that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs, which don’t
rely so much on being ‘real’ like rock, soul and rap acts.
New for Old
Where today’s youth differs radically from previous generations is the unprecedented access it has
to both the history and the vanguard of popular music. On the one hand, it is well documented that
the initial success of the Arctic Monkeys was due to the power of MySpace, the social networking
website purchased by Rupert Murdoch in 2005 for 580 million dollars which bypasses conventional
distribution operations and enables audiences to stream the music and videos of unsigned bands
directly onto their home computer. On the other hand, as the video for their crossover single ‘I Bet
You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ (2005) also proves, contemporary audiences for music video are
more switched on to the history of the genre than ever before. The clip, directed by Huse Monfaradi,
recreates the feel of the music show The Old Grey Whistle Test, which ran on the BBC between 1971
and 1987 before any of the Arctic Monkey band members were even born. Such trends can be
attributed to the proliferation of archive footage from the vaults of television shows like Top of the
Pops, American Bandstand and Musikladen that is now finding a new audience courtesy of the
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video-sharing website YouTube. The value of this new medium to the communications industry was
demonstrated in October 2006 when Google purchased YouTube for 1.85 million dollars.
YouTube for YouMusic
Founded in 2005 by three employees of PayPal, YouTube, like MySpace, allows bands to show DIY
video footage online. Fans can also post archive clips from TV shows, as well as television recordings
of professional music videos from established artists. Other new formats, however, are proliferating:
karaoke-style miming to well-known songs, montages of still images, as well as live concert footage
taken on mobile phone video cameras are examples of the way in which audiences are redefining
the conventions of popular music video. Sorting material by the date added enables the user to view
material within seconds of the footage being uploaded. Consequently the meaning of contemporary
popular video is understood in the context of the perpetual past, present and future. All of this has
implications for contemporary understanding of pop music video. On the one hand, spoofs of wellknown productions (such as 21-year-old Flowrocks’ ‘Hung Up on Crack’, 2006, a parody of Johan
Renck’s promo for Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’ from 2005) reinforce the conventions of the pop music
video: lip-synching, choreographed dancing, urban locations etc. On the other hand, it has also led to
a new DIY aesthetic whereby the kind of low-fi productions achievable by the audience themselves
bestows a certain authenticity and kudos. Mainstream stars like Moby, for example, have started
commissioning alternative low-budget videos specifically for the YouTube market: a $1000 dollar
promo for his collaboration with Debbie Harry on ‘New York, New York’ (2006) premiered on
YouTube three weeks before the official video was unveiled on terrestrial television. The
expectation, of course, is that success on YouTube will translate into mainstream media coverage
and unit sales. For example, OK Go’s self-made video for the single ‘Hear It Goes Again’ (2006),
which features the band performing a choreographed dance routine on syncopated treadmills,
propelled the band into the limelight after clocking up one million views on YouTube within six days
of its initial posting.
Conclusion
A definition of popular music video is certainly difficult to pin down. While its origins can be traced
to the silent movie era, it was really the birth of youth culture in the 50s and 60s and the
proliferation of music television shows like American Bandstand, Top of the Pops and Musikladen
that defined the forms of the genre. However, one of the defining features of the music video is the
purposeful subversion of these conventions layered over an innately parodic sensibility; from the
Beatles to Bob Sinclair, pop music videos tend to embody a burlesque aesthetic. At its worst pop
music video can be a travesty characterised by the conspicuous excess of over-blown faux
Hollywood effects, epics of gaudy overstatement and self-congratulation – Spinal Tap springs to
mind here.
MTV has had a massive impact on the evolution of the pop music video genre and clearly the 1980s
were a time of intensive development within the medium. However, while the germination of Mike
Nesmith’s idea was dependent on the proliferation of satellite technology, it was also fed by the
success of the colourful Smash Hits formula for pop music stardom. Although the fragmentation of
the market in recent years can be attributed to the rise of new digital technology, within those niche
markets there is greater uniformity. The irony is, however, that audiences for popular music video
are more varied than ever before. Unsurprisingly the real action is taking place online. MySpace and
YouTube have shaken up the way that audiences consume popular music video. On the one hand,
the rehabilitation of archive footage has clearly reinforced certain aspects of the genre. On the other
hand, the increased opportunity for interactivity from audiences more sophisticated than ever
before is taking popular music video in completely new directions. However, for the time being at
least, one thing remains the same: from Bill Haley to OK Go it is the way in which the moving image
is edited in time with music that is perhaps the defining feature of the popular music video.
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Adverts or art – you decide
So, that’s it. Hopefully, I’ve emphasised how complex music videos are. It’d be nice to hear your
views and analyses of individual music videos. What do you think? Art or ads? Soft porn (using
mainly female fragmented body parts to attract the – mainly male – gaze, as Laura Mulvey
suggested in 1975) or a genuinely romantic and even spiritual experience of star worship? For what
it’s worth, I don’t really like MTV, I find it too repetitive and too narrow. But music videos
themselves can be wonderful extensions of the song, adding ideas and pleasures on top of the
primary wonder of popular music.
I do believe that sounds remain the source and proper focus of the industry, with images a necessary
but less interesting accompaniment. Radio is better than music television, and music is better than
radio. The success of all these different media together, along with the increasing influence of the
Internet, make popular music the intriguing stew it is today. MM
Steve Archer
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine.
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