The document discusses several music video theorists and their perspectives. Sven E Carlsson describes how music videos can be analyzed by breaking them into binary opposites and categorizes videos as either performance-based or conceptual. Michael Shore argues that most music videos contain adolescent male fantasies involving speed, power, girls, and wealth. Andrew Goodwin outlines several theoretical frameworks for understanding music videos, including cinematic genres, advertising, and postmodern poetry. Finally, Roland Barthes explains that narratives can be open or closed and identifies five codes that are incorporated into narrative music videos: the hermeneutic code, the enigma code, the symbolic code, the semantic code, and the cultural code.
3. Sven E Carlsson
Sven E Carlsson said that ‘One of the most common methods of analysis is to break up the music video into
black and white boxes. Almost everything is then perceived as opposites – trash or art, commerce or
creativity, male or female, naturalism or antirealism, etc. What is being said is the common approach to
music videos in the sense that binary opposites drive the narration of the video forward.
Sven E Carlsson believes that there are two categories that music videos are able to fall into: Performance
or Conceptual…
Performance videos are when the audience are able to see the artists singing and dancing throughout the
video, for example Lady Gaga has mostly performance videos whereas Alt J has much more theatrical
videos for example his video for Breezeblocks.
Conceptual videos are when the audience watch something other than the artist throughout the video.
4. Michael Shore
Michael Shore concludes that music video are recycled styles that contains an information overload and
therefore contains views of adolescent male fantasies. Most videos contain elements of speed, power, girls
and wealth. All this conveys into soft-core pornography with clichéd imagery.
Andrew Goodwin
Andrew Goodwin says that these theoretical conclusions are the basis of understanding music videos:
Cinematic Genre
Advertising Metaphysical Poetry
New Forms Of Television Semiotic Pornography
“Electronic Wallpaper” Post-modern Poetry
Dreams
5. Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes explained that texts may be open or closed. He narrowed down the action of text into five
different codes, which are included into any narrative, this includes narrative music videos.
The five codes are:
The hermeneutic Code (HER)
The Enigma/ Proairetic Code (ACT)
The symbolic Code (REF)
The Culture Code (REF)
6. Roland Barthes
The Hermeneutic Code
This is the voice of the supposed truth, HER, is the way the story avoids telling the truth or letting the facts slip. This is to drop
clues throughout the video to give it some mystery and makes it very entertaining.
The Enigma
This is the empirical voice, this gives the audience a cliff hanger and is there to build up tension to leave the audience guessing.
Semantic Code
This is the voice of person, this points out that the lyrics may have a hidden meaning.
Symbolic Code
This is the voice of symbols, where meaning arise out of objects, there's shown simplistically but have a much deeper meaning.
Cultural Code
This is the voice of science, this relates to the audience and make the video much more realistic..
