Music Promo Theories

Andrew Goodwin

• Music promos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in rock and metal videos and dance routines in boy/girl bands). 
• 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) 
• There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (screens within screen,telescopes etc..) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body. 
• There is often intertextual reference to films, TV and other music promos. 

Steve Archer 

• There needs to be a strong and coherent relationship between narrative and performance in the music video.
• Music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band.
• A carefully choreographed dance might be part of the artist's performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to air visualisation and the 'repeatablility' factor.

John Stewarts

• The music video has the aesthetics of a TV commercial, with a lot of close ups of the artist. Lighting is used to focus on the starts face.
• Visual references come from a range of sources most are from cinema, fashion and art photography.
• 'Incorporation, raiding and reconstructing' are essential parts of intertextuality, using something with which the audience may be familiar, to generate both nostalgic associations and new meaning.
• The video allows more access to the performer than a stage performance can.
• Mise-en-scene, can be used to emphasise an aspirational lifestyle.

Sigmund Frued

• Voyeurism- Refers to the notion that erotic pleasure may be gained by looking at a sexual object (when the object is not aware of being watched) this is seen a lot in some genres of music promos.

Laura Mulvey

• Because filmmakers are predominately male, the presence of women in films is often solely for the purpose of display.
• The purpose of this display is to facilitate a voyeuristic response in spectators, which is generally seen from a male's point of view, one that is a powerful controlling gaze at the female on display, who is objectified and passive.

Roland Barthes

• Enigma Code- Referring to the idea of holding back information from the viewer as a way to raise questions that demand explanation.
• Action Code- Refers to the idea of building interest and suspense on the part of the audience.

 Tzvetan Todorov

• Narrative begins with an equilibrium (harmony), then moves to a disequilibrium (disharmony) until a new equilibrium is restored by the end.

Claude Levi-Strauss

• Constant creation of conflict/ opposition propels narrative. Narrative can only end on a resolution of conflict. Opposition can be visual (light/darkness, movement/ stillness) or conceptual (love/hate, control/panic), and to do with soundtrack.