Summary Of Andrew Goodwin's Theory

Andrew Goodwin 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory 1993

To summaries Andrew Goodwin's theory on music is that he feel hat traditional narrative analyses don't really apply to pop videos because they approach narrative from a different angle to films and novels, according to Goodwin this is due to a number of reasons

1. Pop videos are built around song, and usually songs do not create traditional narrative structures.
2. In pop videos the singer us used as narrator as well as character
3. The singer often looks directly into the character in order to engage and relate to the audience and trying to involve the viewer within the performance.

pop videos often rely on repetition. the video usually repeats images in the way the song repeats choruses or lines. The repetition in songs of parts or rhythm of other songs allows the audience to become familiar with the genre therefore developing a certain expectation that the artist has to remain.


The visualization of a song may go beyond the original meaning, some videos can be autonomous from the music they come from.
sometimes many videos can provide a visual pleasure that encourages repeated viewing which therefore promotes the music.

It can be said that there are three types of relations between songs and videos

• Illustration 
• amplification
• disjuncture

Here is some evidence supporting Andrew Goodwin's theory on the different types of relation between songs and videos.

This is an example of Illustration this when the video tell the story of the lyrics, such as in this music video La La La by Naughty Boy, the lyrics 'covering my ears like a kid' are illustrated when the little boy and also the other characters cover their ears and say La La La.

The next eample is to for Amplification, this is occurs when the the videos introduce new meanings that do not contradict with the lyrics but add layers to the meaning. This Video Same love by Macklemore 

is trying to put forward a message and meaning through the lyrics as well as the video, about same sex marriage but also about issues with discrimination as a whole. Which supports the idea of amplification. 

The last example is for Disjuncture, this where there is no connection or little connection between the video and lyrics or perhaps where the video contradicts the lyrics. This is Rudeboy by Rihanna which supports Disjuncture as the  video doesn't relate to the lyrics being sung, it is more about the performance of the artist.