My Favourite VideosAnalysed using Goodwin’s terminology.

By Heather Tulloch

1. Kanye West – The good Life

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Can’t Stop

3. Bright Eyes – First day of My Life

VOYEURISM: The video is stereotypical of the way woman are portrayed in rap and hip-hop videos. The woman doesn’t really have a purpose in the video other than wearing next to nothing and dancing around.

1.

This is objectifying the woman and representingher as an object and something to be owned as opposed to a human being

The comical look on his face as he sings that “this is the good life” shows that he is not taking the woman seriously.

GENREKanye West throws money and jewels around and flashes his red American

Express card. It is typical of this genre of music where the artists are defined by money, bling and women. All the way

through the video we are constantly being reminded of how much money they have

and because of this, the we will have taken the video and songs as a direct reflection

of the singer and their lifestyle.

boasting about his American Express card as you generally only see people with a lot of money have them.

Throwing around Jewels

Ferrari

GENREKanye West throws money and jewels around and flashes his red American Express card. It is typical of this genre of music where the artists are defined by money, bling and women. All the way through the video we are constantly being reminded of how much money they have and because of this, the we will have taken the video and songs as a direct reflection of the singer and their lifestyle.

The close ups of Kanye West and T-Pain predominate in

the video which is conventional for a music

video to create a sense of intimacy. It could also have

been a demand from the star or the record company to

promote the star.

LYRICS

Key lines in the lyrics play a part in the visual. The animation illustrates the

relationship with the word. E.g.. “it feels like LA.” Also in the video the lyrics are

“throw your hand up in the sky” and there are animated hands as well as “watch the money pile up” and a stack of animated

money appearing.

“season haters give me them salty looks” “Have you ever popped champagne on a plane?”

INTERTEXTUALITY

John Stewart described the music video as

‘incorporating, raiding and reconstructing’ other

media. In this Video the Red hot Chili Peppers use

the art work of photographer and sculptor Erwin Wurm as a theme for their video, recreating

of the sculptures with themselves included.

2.Erwin

Wurm’s Sculptures

GENREDifferent music genres have

different styles and iconography. Her we can tell by the live

performance that this is a rock band and not a pop song. This

style is a guarantee that the band is authenticity of the bands musical

virtuosity. It is also very conventional but also very raw,

naturalistic and un-choreographed.

Here there is a direct link to the lyrics and the visuals “complete the motion if you stumble” and the singer stumbles as the lyrics is sung. This is quite early in the video and one of the

many close-ups of the lead singer.

The editing in the music video is very slow paced and uses gentler shot

transitions to emphasise the mood and to show the emotions of the people in the video. The people in the video are listening to the video on headphones

with the people that they love. It is very naturalistic and has a home video

feel to it as there is a narrative.

3.

This man is meant to represent someone who doesn’t have anyone to love

This woman has

someone who might have died

This music video represents a variety of different people and different relationships they have with the people that they love which I think it very effective as the audience can relate to it and be moved by it.

The Lyrics in the song play a key part in some of the visuals we see. Where the

people are listening to the lyrics “yours was the first face that I saw” the woman looks up

towards her partner.

“I realised that I need you, and I wondered if I could come home”

“remember the time you drove all night”

The song has a narrative and the images used in the video are deep and moving and meant to touch a nerve as opposed to being performance driven. It is showing the importance of love.