Analysing music video - tying together theories

To bring the two themes together, I have analysed two videos from artists that are similar to the artist that I am using, Sally J Johnson. She is a single female folky pop artist. I feel that Florence + The Machine and Slow Moving Millie are both similar to my artist.

Florence + The Machine - You've Got The Love

As is common with many music videos, especially pop videos, there are close-ups throughout of Florence performing the song. This would satisfy the demands of their label, and cements the genre of this song, which is part of goodwins theory.







There is a subtle link to the notion of looking, where we see one person in the crowd repeatedly with a camera. Cameras invite us to look at the artist and other people in the video, and this is one of Goodwins points. This is also a very redundant element of pop videos, and many videos in general.

The link to voyeurism is strenthened by Florence herself. She isn't wearing clothes that cover her up well (she has her legs out!) and she is dancing, which leads to lots of shots of her body. This makes the viewer look at her in particular, and links to one of goodwins points, and is also again redundant.

There is a link between the lyrics and visuals, which is one of Goodwins 6 features.In the screenshot to the right, Florence sings "Sooner or later in life, the things you love you loose", and in the video balloons are released, and lost as the float away. Links between lyrics and visuals are redundant in many videos.

There are also links between music and visuals. At the start of the video, it swaps between different angled shots of Florence, and these shots change with the music of the song. This again proves Goodwin right, and is very redundant.






Overall, this video proves Goodwin correct throughout, and is a very redundant pop video, using elements that many genre of videos use, not just pop videos.

Slow Moving Millie - Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want

 As with the previous video, there are many close ups of the artist throughout the video, which will satisfy the demands of the music label. As stated before, this is one of Goodwins points, and is a very redundant element in music videos, particularly of this genre.






This video is an amplify video, as the visuals amplify the meanings in the song. The match going out is used thoughout, and is a symbol of hope, which is what the song is about, and the match going out is showing that she never gets what she wants. It is redundant to have links between visuals and meanings, but it is done in a entropic, subtle way.




The visuals also match the music. In roughly the middle of the song, the match is shown as three dancers, who are in time with the music. This again is one of goodwins points, and although it is redundant to have the links, they are done in an entropic, unusal way.

There is no really obvious links to voyeurism, or the notion of looking. This disproves Goodwins theory, ande is highly entropic as generally speaking, voyeurism is present in many videos, pop videos especially.







The video doesn't really reflect the characteristics of the genre, which is one of Goodwins points. He states that videos should, and although there are close ups of the artist throughout the video, there isn't really any other characteristics of pop videos, such as big dance routines and scantily clad women, in this video. This again is entropic.




To sum up, I would say that this video is very entropic, and although contains some redundant elements, it is not very typical of a pop video.