Andrew Goodwin, Narrative and Music Videos

Andrew Goodwin argues that narratives in music videos and in novels/films is different. He has various reasons to support his theory. If we think about the narrative of a story, it usually starts off with the equilibrium (the world is balanced), then going into the disruptions (something happens to that world), Afterwards, there is the disequilibrium (meaning the world is in chaos, it is not established any more), then there is the force (where a force overcomes another one) and lastly there is the new equilibrium (the wold is balanced again after everything was solved).

Goodwin's theory goes states that music video narratives go against this traditional story telling structure. He has three main reasons to support his theory. He says pop videos are different because they are built around a song, and a song very often repeats (i.e. it might repeat the chorus). He also states that pop videos usually use the singer as both the narrator and a character in the story. Lastly, he says that the singer looks straight at the camera, addressing the audience, breaking that "reality" ideology. This is an example of a repeated chorus...

Muse Starlight Chorus 1

Muse Stalight Chorus 2

Goodwin states that the relationship between lyrics and video is divided in 3 aspects:

1: Illustration- When the lyrics say exactly what is seen on screen such when we see Madonna sings "cas I have always been your little girl" in her music video for "Papa don't preach", we see a clip of what probably was her at a young age running to her dad and hugging him.

2: amplification- when there is a relationship between the lyrics and the video, however not in a literal way. Instead, in a very exaggerated way. We can see an example of this in the song "Where's your head at" by Basement Jaxx. The song follows an insanity, paranoia, trapped theme. We can link these themes with this specific bit of the video where the monkeys being experimented with go insane and attack the character.

3: Disjuncture- This is when there is very little connection between what is sung and the music video. We can find disjuncture in "Superstylin" by "Groove Armada".  The video is about alien life that came to planet earth and are discovering the human race. However, the song is all about how to make music and how to mic up singers and how to get all the connections and signal routing correct for a show.  In this but, the