POP MUSIC VIDEO DECONSTRUCTIONS

POP GENRE CONVENTIONS

Bright Colours (lighting, props, costume etc)

Partying/Drinking

Dancers/Dance routine

Loud, Bubbly characters

Often a theme of relationships forming/during/breaking up

Revealing outfits

GOODWIN THEORY

1. Genre Characteristics

2.Relationship between lyrics and visuals

3. Relationship between music and visuals

4. Familiarisation of the Artist

5. Frequent referencing to the notion of looking (voyeurism)

6.Inter-textual referencing

ARIANA GRANDE FEATURING IGGY AZALEA - PROBLEM

Problem is a song expressing Ariana’s feeling for an unnamed male

that if she were without, then she would have “one less problem”.

The video itself both conforms and challenges pop music genre

conventions for different reasons.

PROBLEM Expected within a pop music video is bright colours, whether its in

costume, make up, lighting, background, however in this music

there is a lack of bright colours contrasting to conventions of the

genre. Most of the music video is in black and white, with dancers

and singers all being dressed in black and white.

PROBLEM Although the majority of the video doesn’t

involve bright colours, it doesn’t completely

challenge genre conventions as there is some

use of bright colours.

PROBLEM In the music video for problem no theme of partying or drinking is

included, challenging genre conventions.

However, the music clip does conform to pop music genre

conventions as it includes a dance routine and has a number of

dancers. This highlights to us that although not all expected

conventions of a pop music video are met by the tracks clip, it

still definitely is pop like.

PROBLEM

The idea of having a relationship theme within the conventions of pop

music is met by this song, but not in the video. The song is obviously

stating how she is better off without the unnamed man as he is just a

problem, but within the film, no link to the lyrics is made. This contrasts

to one of the ideas in goodwins theory as the idea that lyrics match

visuals is not shown in this video.

PROBLEM

In this video, a typical thing to see within a pop music video is revealing

outfits and in this video there is no lack of that. By Ariana wearing a

very short dress and dancers being topless (males) or in crop tops

(females) the video conforms to genre conventions of outfits.

GOODWIN APPLIED TO ‘PROBLEM’

The music video to the song ‘Problem’ doesn’t match all of Goodwin’s

theory, however it does to some such as familiarisation of artist and the

notion of looking (voyeurism).

The audience are made very familiar of the main artist and featuring

artist as both are featured a lot through out the video and singing

when its ones turn.

GOODWIN APPLIED TO ‘PROBLEM’

Often during the music video, Ariana looks into the camera as if she is

looking at you creating the voyeurism effect. This is Goodwin’s theory

being shown to be true in some aspects.