Essay on Theories

Music research and theories

One theory that has been used in countless amounts of music videos, past and present is the Laura Mulveys male gaze theory. The concept of the gaze is one that shows how an audience views certain people and how they are presented. The three main ways are how men look at women, how women look at themselves and how women look at other women. The main one that is featured in many music videos especially in pop music videos because of the vibes they create is how men look at women. The difference in the music videos in the past compared to the present is that the male gaze has dramatically increased to try and sexualise women in a lot of media like music videos or films. The iconic Debbie Gibson who was one of the youngest singer song writers of 1988 who specialised in pop wasn’t really sexualised in a lot of ways because her music wasn’t presented in a way that needed gaze and if it did it wouldn’t really fit in. This is completely different with today’s music videos and female singers such as the pop band little mix (Perrie Edwards, Jesy Nelson, Leigh-anne pinnock and Jade Thirlwall) where everything is over the top with sassiness and sexualisation. How the gaze is implemented is by the use of the camera always lingers on the curves of the female body and the events that occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man’s reaction to these events or movements. The camera is used in conjunction with the male gaze theory that women can have the status of an object in certain media but this can be seen in the same way with women when a man has the status of an object. In today’s music videos the male gaze is used so much more now than it was in the past. In today’s music videos it is used with men and women e.g. one direction and little mix. It isn’t used just in the illustration of the music videos but in the advertisement of them as well like poster of billboards.    

Another theory is Andrew goodwins idea on narrative, performance and concept videos. Andrew Goodwin puts his theory into 5 key aspects that the audience should look out for: thought beats – see the sound, narrative and performance, the star image, relation of visuals to songs and technical aspects of music videos.

Thought beats or seeing the sound is covered in 3 points. Firstly the audience should visual try and see the song/music and should listen to every word that is being said. This way the audience get a deeper understanding of what the song is about and the meaning behind it. The second thing the audience should do is listen to the voice of the song. Every artist is extremely unique and is normally the uniqueness of their voice that makes them popular for example Yolandi visser who is a South African singer that mostly sing alternative hip hop. Because she is so known for her unique voice she has not only become popular in South Africa she is now a worldwide singer and has performed at many music festivals in England. The songs alone in my opinion could not get her to where she is now and because the music is somewhat strange compared to normal hip hop it means that less people are interested. The third and final point of thought beats is the audience should listen to the mode of address of the artists. Songs can be seen as stories and the artists is the storyteller. The music video is a communication device that helps the audience understands the story. One artists that always sings story songs is Lily Allen who sings alternative music and always sings about her relationships with her ex-boyfriends. She does this because she had strong feelings for these people and the feelings and passion gets reflected in the song and because of this it is easy to communicate the story of the situation.

The second aspect of Andrews theory is the narrative and performance of the music video. Because the narrative of music aren’t as clear as films the audience only get a partial amount of what is happening and then the audience try and piece the rest of what is happening by themselves. This is the same way how different people see two different meanings in a book. One is seeing it from one point of view whereas the other is seeing it from another. With the use of narrative and performance in a music video it helps the audience understand it better and because they understand it better it means that the audience is able to watch the video over and over again without the loss of interest as they can follow it with ease. This in turn creates mass amounts of views. Sometimes it’s the uniqueness of the videos narrative and performance that makes people watch it over and over again, one example is Billie jean by Michael Jackson because the famous moonwalk. It is still idolized today even though it is 30 years old people are still amazed by it. One hard thing to do that is always implemented into a music video is the lip syncing because if the song doesn’t lip sync it means that it is less believable and looks unprofessional. This is something a music video needs to be.

The third aspect is the star image. It is a vital aspect to create any kind of media such as music videos, the actually music or films. If the audience need to know who is behind the music or at least have someone to link that music to otherwise it is unlikely that music will become successful. An example of a star image or in this case stars are daft punk who are well known for their electronic sound but are also so popular because they never show their face. This makes them very mysterious and also makes them stand out from the crowd because they are so unusual. When this was created it was very brand new and had never been done before. This may also be because the music style of daft punk is also new and therefore wouldn’t have worked with other styles. Star images have been used since the music industry began with icons such as dean martin, Elvis and Peggy Lee.

The fourth aspect is relations of visuals to songs. There are three ways a song can be used in conjunction with visuals. Illustration, this is where the music video uses certain images or shots to show the meaning of why the song has been written and what genre the song belongs to. An example of an illustrated music video is the Tenacious D tribute song the best song in the world. Then second way is Disjuncture. This is where the meaning of the song is nowhere used or shown in the music video and is ignored entirely. An example of this being used is …. . The final way is repeatability this is where the video uses the same shots and shows the same images. This is a very good way to promote a song as you remember it easily. An example of this is S Club Don’t Stop Movin and most of their other songs because is one set of dance moves repeated throughout the whole video.

The Final one is technical aspects of music videos. This is what keeps the music together, it helps create the vibe and maintain it. This is where you apply all the special effects and editing to a music video. The use of mise en scene is also used in this process.  The technical aspects are all the things in the video that makes it unique and different from the rest. Lady gaga is known for her outrages costumes; this makes her popular and makes her stand out. In pop videos its all the quick cuts that keeps the pace going to match the beat of the song. In conclusion music videos have changed a lot over the years, mostly because of improvement of technology and the change in what people like. Another way they have changes is the amount of genres have increased dramatically and this in turn creates more genres which creates different kinds of music videos.