Andrew Goodwin feels that traditional narrative analyses don’t apply to pop videos. As pop videos are built around songs and do not have pose traditional narrative structure. They also use the singer both as a narrator and as a character in pop videos, in addition the singer often looks directly at the camera. Videos often repeat images in the way the song repeats the choruses or lines. Pop videos have a form of closure and ending, it builds to a climax or to a constant repetition before fading away. The actual visualisation of a song may go beyond the original meaning. The visual pleasure of the video encourages viewing which therefore promotes the song. Sometimes the video can be promoting other commodities such as films. Videos try and appeal to as wide an audience as possible without alienating the core target audience. There are three types of relations between songs and videos.
Illustration: this is where the video tells the story of the lyric. An example is ‘Last Friday Nigth’ by Katy Perry, which fits exactly with the category that visuals accompany perfectly what is sung. The lyrics tell the story of a teenage girl who has a party on the Friday night and it goes to show the events which took place.
Amplification: this is when the video introduces new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers of meaning. This is an example of a video which creates new meanings that does not contradict but adds to the lyrics, ‘E.T. ft. ‘ by Katy Perry and Kanye West’. The video portrays a Kanye West and Katy Perry in space. The lyrics do not specifically refer to this throughout the song, but do not contradict this storyline either.
Disjunction: this is where there is little connection between the lyric and video or the video could contradict the lyrics. Pop videos have easily recognisable features, for example the way woman are presented as objects to male desire. A model for this is Beyonce as she deliberately presents herself for males to look at but what is different in her videos is that she directly looks back at the viewers through the camera and she ceases to be passive. In some videos the different instruments in the music are represented by different objects. An example of disjuncture is ‘Single Ladies’ by Beyonce, the video does have some connection with the lyrics but only in small parts of the video. The song is edited quickly to go with the dance routine and has not narrative.
Also videos that are from songs written for particular movies often incorporate images from the movie in the video, for example Leona Lewis’s ‘I see you’ from Avatar.
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