Music television
2 – how to study 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. And afterwards he and Pete Fraser present their top five music
videos of all time.
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 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-in-hand 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 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.
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.
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
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 7, February 2004
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