Roland Barthes: 'Grain of Voice'
This sees the singing voice as an instrument of expression, unique to the singer. This may even hold trademarks which tie in to the star image, such as Michael Jackson's yelp, Tom Waits' growl, or Liam Gallagher's nasal whine. This can be seen to dominate the performance, separating the song and making it unique. The importance of the singer's vocal 'grain' must therefore also be represented through the visual style of the video.
Synaesthesia
This is the psychological process of visualising images from sounds. This idea is central to understanding or creating music videos, helping to connect with audiences and providing additional pleasure. For this,the grain of voice combines with all elements of the music (from instrumentation, texture, tempo, strucutre, mix, effects and everything else) to create visual associations. These may come from our shared sense of cultural history, intertextual references, or more personal, individual responses.
Genre-defining shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine provide an excellent portrait for the idea of synaesthesia. Their dreaming, swirling, wall-of-noise soundscape is visualised in an extremely literal way in their video for 'To Here Knows When':
Voyeurism
A Freudian idea that explains the gendered pleasures of cinema, referring to the idea of looking in order to gain sexual pleasure. It has been argued that the male viewers' gaze at the screen is geared to notions of voyeurism in that it is a powerful controlling gaze at the objectified female on display. In music videos, the female on display has become a staple element, particularly in female commercial pop and modern rap genres.
Goodwin on Voyeurism
He argues that the female performer will frequently be objectified in this fashion, through a combination of camerawork (eg tilts, close ups) and editing, with fragmented body shots emphasising a sexualised treatment of the star.
This is not just limited to female performers: in male performance videos too, the idea of voyeuristic treatment of the female body is often apparent with the use of dancers as adornments flattering the male star ego.
Laura Mulvey
Mulvey argues that there are three forms of 'looking': camera to characters, between characters on screen, and the audience looking at the screen. All of these presuppose a male audience with a voyeuristic purpose; the 'controlling gaze'. She asks if woman learn to be looked at through the construct of music videos.
The Male Body
However, there is also evidence of a 'post-feminism equality' in music videos, where male bodies are also used to elicit a scopophilic pleasure.
Controlling Female Artists
That is not to say that all female popstars have their bodies used for promotion and pleasure. Some are more complex, being simultaneously sexually provocative and also in complete control and power. Similarly, some show almost no evidence of any desire to evoke any voyeuristic pleasure, focusing more on the music than the star. These situations offer a discussion on the range of experiences of music videos and the contradictory conventions and meanings displayed.
Camerawork:
-Has significant impact on meaning!
-Everything; camera movement, angle, distance, shot type, framing etc, can be used to construct meaning, (and should be analysed accordingly).
-Movement can follow/accompany movement of performers to create a more dynamic feel to an otherwise static sequence.
Editing:
-Fast-cut discontinuity montage style is most common, ensuring multiple viewings by audiences/consumers to see all images.
-Some may use slow place and gentle transitions to establish mood (eg for ballads).
-Pace can be varied to match the song elements (tempo, rhythm etc), and ultimately to sustain interest.
-Unconventional, one take videos can be quite interesting, such as the surrealist video for Radiohead's 'Knives Out':
Special Effects
-SFX are not used to create an illusion of reality (like in film), but to make an interesting image.
-They offer different kinds of pleasure for the audience by playing with images.
-However, they can look cheap and outdated, or tacky if overused/used inappropriately/used badly.
The Close-Up
-Due to size of TV screens!
-Create sense of intimacy for viewer.
-And, more importantly, it emphasises the commodity (the artist) being promoted.
