Today I'm going to look at the theorist Simon Firth and his way of looking at how a music video will be successful. He was one of the most important theorist in music videos. In 1998 Firth believed that music videos will be characterised by three broad typologies such as narrative, performance and conceptual.
PERFORMANCE
The performance videos was one of the most common type of feature and was when a 'star' or a group singing in a concert to fans. Firth believed this made a music video successful as it conveyed a sense of in the concert experience which made the fans feel more engaged to the music. In addition to that he believed that performance videos that displayed the star or the group in the studio reminded the viewer that the soundtrack is important as normally we don't see much of artists behind the scene so by us seeing the artists we like listening you could argue it makes us have more of connection with them. One example of this is shown by One direction in the little things music video where it's them in the studio this showed all the One direction fans something they rarely see and as a result made them more connected to the song and made it a successful music video.
Frith's theory of performance was also supported by Gow who said "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element” (Gow, 1992)
ONE DIRECTION (LITTLE THINGS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPeNN9S0Fg
NARRATIVE
PERFORMANCE
The performance videos was one of the most common type of feature and was when a 'star' or a group singing in a concert to fans. Firth believed this made a music video successful as it conveyed a sense of in the concert experience which made the fans feel more engaged to the music. In addition to that he believed that performance videos that displayed the star or the group in the studio reminded the viewer that the soundtrack is important as normally we don't see much of artists behind the scene so by us seeing the artists we like listening you could argue it makes us have more of connection with them. One example of this is shown by One direction in the little things music video where it's them in the studio this showed all the One direction fans something they rarely see and as a result made them more connected to the song and made it a successful music video.
Frith's theory of performance was also supported by Gow who said "Performance oriented visuals cue viewers that indeed, the recording of the music is the most significant element” (Gow, 1992)
ONE DIRECTION (LITTLE THINGS): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGPeNN9S0Fg
NARRATIVE
Another typology Firth believed was that Narrative can make music videos successful. This is because the viewers when listening to music which is emotional such as a love song if you put a story to it this can make the viewer more emotionally attached. Schwichtenberg also backed this up by saying "Video may tell any kind of story in linear, cause-effect sequencing. Love stories are the most common narrative mode in music video and normally follow the pattern of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Males who do things and females who passively react or wait for something to happen dominate action in the story" (Schwichtenberg, 1992).
BEYONCE (If I Were A Boy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M
CONCEPTUAL
BEYONCE (If I Were A Boy): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWpsOqh8q0M
CONCEPTUAL
The final typology Firth believed in was conceptual which relied on poetic form, primarily metaphor so they can be metaphysical poetry articulated through visual and verbal elements. Another theorist Lorch also said "These videos make significant use of the visual element, presenting to the eye as well as the ear, and in doing so, conveying truths inexpressible discursively” (Lorch 1988). Good music video example is Sam Smith 'La La La' where in the music video it portrays 'the wizard of oz'.
KEY WORDS:
Typology: Classification according to general type
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