Analyse by Andrew Goodwin; Key features

Andrew Goodwin in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (1992) has identified the following features of music videos

Music videos demonstrate genre characterise's (e.g. Stage performance in metal video , dance video routines for boy/girl band)

These feature identified by Goodwin are evidently correct as their are a number of bands and artists which demonstrates this. Heavy mental do tend to have the bands performing in their music video, this can be seen in the group Rage Against The Machine music video called 'Killing in the name of'.

This video is typical of all heavy metal video as it is performance based and consists of individuals in the band with long hair, tattoos and loose/none clothing.



Music videos also demonstrate the charactertic of having dance routines from boy bands. This is evident in the current boy band JLS in one of their single called 'One Shot'.


As you can see in this video each individual artist is dressed differently with a unique look. This is done in order to appeal to a more variety of females as each girl has a different persona to men. The close-ups in the video are also effectively used to show off the artists looks, the use of editing contruibutes in the act of increasing fan members.

Girl bands also tend to have dance routines in their music videos as well as boys. This can be seen in one of the Girls Aloud music video called Sound of the underground



In addition to this some routines were coriagraphed as so in order to sell more records. This is evident in the Spice Girls's single called If you wanna be my lover. This is beacuse young girls at the time when this classic single was relased many of them would immertate some of these dance move routines in school discos or sleepovers. Simply beacuse of this muscic video the artist's tracksuit bottoms also became a popular item of clothing amougst young girls as every girl and friends got these joggers in order to mirror the Spice Girls.

Dance routines can signifcantly contribute in the success of a music video. The important of this can be seen in the current single by PSY called Gangnam Style. This music video achieved record blowing views of over 1billion worldwide on YouTube and number 1 spot in the Top UK Charts even though the lyrics are Korean, this achievement was significantly because of the dance routine which is reconisable worlwide.



Andrew Goodwin also idenfifies a relationshop between lyrics and visuals (either illustrate, amlif ying, contradicting).

A relationship between lyrics and visual can be seen to illustrate something in the music video 'Beat It' by Michale Jackson as the visual aspects illustrates an act of gangwarfare whilst the lyrics is also on the same subject on gangwarfare as the summary of the lyrics is seprating the warfare.



This relationship can also be seen in the Spice Girls music video 'If you wanna be my lover' as one of the girls in the video kisses a boy but then immediatley walks away to her girl-friends, this act illustrates her firends superiority which corresponds to the lyrics as it is a song about the importance of friendship

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On the other Andrew Goodwin also mentions the relationship between lyrics and visuals condracdicting. This act in a music video is rear to find as the whole piont of a music video is to tell some sort of story of some how relate with the lyrics in order let the audience know what the song is about.

Andrew Goodwin also identifies a relationship between the music and visual which i agree to, to some extend. The 'music' is refferation to the beat/instrumental in the video, if the music is fast the editing will correspond to it likewise if the beat was slow.

Andrew Goodwin can be proven to be wrong on this as the editing to the music video 'Beat it' by Micael Jackson was the case as the editing was very static due to the limited rage of shots whilst the music was very vibrant.

On the other hand Andrew Goodwin can be seen to also be right as in another music video by Michael Jackson called Scream the rapid music matched with the editing as the shots were constanting switching and in motion.