Research : Andrew Goodwin 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'

Andrew Goodwin’s 6 Features of Music Videos

In his book Dancing in the Distraction Factory Andrew Goodwin points out characteristics and features that can be found in music videos.

1.    Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics.
(e.g. stage performance in metal videos, dance routine for boy/girl band, aspiration in Hip Hop).

2.    There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals. The lyrics are represented with images.
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

3.    There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music.
(either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting).

4.    The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style).

5.    There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages, etc) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.

6.    There are often intertextual reference (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc).

(From Andrew Goodwin, DANCING IN THE DISTRACTION FACTORY, 1992.)

The following is taken from the website of Ed Cox. Cox reflects on Goodwin's thoughts relating to music video and discusses his thoughts about the 3rd and 4th chapters of 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' in particular. The music videos referred to are examples from the period in which Goodwin's book was published; the 1990s.

Andrew Goodwin's Dancing in the Distraction Factory was a breakthrough in music video analysis in that whole sections of his book have been dedicated to theories concerning the fusion of sound and image. 

• Chapter 3 (pp.43-71) establishes "A Musicology of the Image" 
• Chapter 4 (pp.72-97) discusses "The Structure of Music Video" and how it relates to the music. 

These two chapters are the most relevant to this introduction; the others focus on social and political issues and the business side of MTV.

In Chapter 3, Goodwin discards previous studies of music video, such as that of John Corbett (1990) to show how musicology can illustrate the visual just as well as any textual factors. 

He states that "the suggestion that music itself lacks a visual component is…a symptom of not listening carefully enough" (p.50). He goes on to argue that musical phenomena have their visual parallels. "The tempo of popular music is very clearly and directly represented in music video clips. A variety of techniques are used to visualise speed: camera movement, fast editing...postproduction, computer effects.. ." (p.60). 

An example of fast editing or cutting, occurs in the clip for S-Express' Superfly Guy (1988), and though the tempo of the song is not incredibly fast, the energy and often exhaustive nature of the music (acid house/new disco) is reflected in the fast pace of the cutting, much of it happening on the beat, representing the pulse or rhythm of the soundtrack.

Goodwin quotes Snap!'s The Power (l990) "with a flashbulb accenting stresses in rhythm" (p.63). Similarly, in The Prodigy's No Good (Start The Dance) (1994), the flickering light suggests the pace of the music, and the images of a sledgehammer striking various objects coincide with the cymbal crashes at the beginning of musical phrases towards the end of the song.

"The arrangement of pop songs balances three central elements: the voice, the rhythm, and the backing that supports them both" (p.63) - three elements that are mirrored in the video clip, claims Goodwin. 

Most videos stress the importance of the vocal, and never more so in the video for Jamiroquai's Half the Man (1994), which consists of a continuous, unedited close-up of J.K's face as he mimes the words of the song. The video is startling in its simplicity. In other, less clear-cut cases, there occurs a conflict between vocal and rhythmic prominence, such as the alternation of lip-syncing and dance routines in chart dance videos such as Baby D's Let Me Be Your Fantasy (1994) or Janet Jackson's You Want This (1994).

Harmonic development is also represented visually in the promo video, according to Goodwin (p.65). An example is Nirvana's In Bloom (1991) which is a pastiche of early American black and white pop shows, and is presented in two contrasting ways. During the verses, the band stands still to perform the song with perhaps exaggerated gestures that suggest a "teenybop" side to the band. For the rougher- sounding choruses, the band wear dresses and leap about breaking up the set and generally becoming more violent, therefore the differences between the verses and choruses of the song are echoed in the promo video. Goodwin terms this a "shift in emphasis". After all harmonic developments comes the final resolution, defined by Goodwin as "the aural equivalent of a…narrative reaching its conclusion" (p.83), or a resolving of tension or conflict that develops the moment a guitar chord is struck, or a bass-and-drum rhythm is established.

Goodwin borrows this theory of a conflict being resolved from a literary or narrative idea, and is relevant to both the images seen and sounds heard in promo videos. 

Evidence of this occurs in The Beautiful South's A little Time (1990). We know that the song is coming to its conclusion 

• visually, when the female lead walks away from the male
• lyrically, with the repeat of the words "I"ve had a little time" that are borrowed from the title
• musically, with the final cadence and closing guitar riff.

Goodwin refers to the importance of musical repetition again in chapter 4 - The Structure of Music Video in relation to the theories of Theodore Adorno. 

Goodwin argues that the repetition of a certain rhythm, riff or even a lyric (as with The Beautiful South's A little Time) serves to make the song memorable, therefore possibly increasing single and album sales. 

The promo video is a further method of repetition - "The three-minute single that forms the structural basis for music video clips is thus both highly repetitive and highly ordered and stable" (p.82) in comparison with the extended twelve-inch mixes which are often "expanded... and radically restructured" (p.81) versions of the seven inch. The function of the promo video is therefore to further promote a track that is often promoted elsewhere.

Television and Music Television offers another medium through which the pop music listener digests the promotion of music. Since recent Top of the Pops policy dictates more "live" performance and less video clips, video clips can only be seen outside of prime time broadcasting hours on Network television, on programmes such as The Album Show", "3PM", "The O-Zone" or "The Chart Show" (whose policy is to play only two and a half minutes of any video clip).

MTV offers different possibilities to Network TV, in that it broadcasts video clips for the entire 24 hours, and broadcasts each clip in its entirety. This allows the viewer the opportunity to see extended prologues/postludes to certain videos (e.g. the ending of Massive Attack's Protection) , or other full-length video clips such as Michael Jackson's Thriller (1984) or Black Or White(1991), that wouldn"t be seen on Network TV. This suggests a different attitude towards music video, or a different set of aesthetics when considering videos in the wider context of MTV, and it becomes evident that MTV presents the video clip as an art form in itself, more than merely promoting a single or album. 

The appearance of "specialist" shows on MTV has widened the use of music video. MTV's Party Zone is broadcast late at weekends to be played in pubs or at parties, and so in keeping with the style of nightclubs, make use of the twelve-inch mix to accompany the videos, many of which have been specially made for broadcast on MTV. Recent examples are 12" mixes of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax and Two Tribes (1993), and Paul Oakenfold's remixes of U2's Even Better Than The Real Thing (1992) and New Order's True Faith(1992).