Sincerity out of vulnerability.

Evolution is a global process. As societies evolve, technologies evolve, cultures evolve, and with that we see media output start to evolve. Traditional tendencies still have their place in modern society, but they are adjusted to suit the culture of their time. With the emergence of the Internet, many activities which were once private have become public. Toilets, barfing, and the act of disciplining one’s children are a few examples of the shift from what was once private to what is now socially acceptable. In particular, the confessional process has a history that is thousands of years old. Western societies have been built on the importance of religious confession. This process was once imperative to attain normalization; to be accepted by the church and the society on which it was founded.

New media have affected the confessional process in many ways. Traditionally, children would learn about the church from their parents or from schools. With knowledge at our fingertips, these traditional tools have become unnecessary, though not obsolete. YouTube is a haven for How to videos and one may find just about anything from how to kiss  to how to shuffle cards. Even the church has it’s place.

The confessional process is not only addressed in amateur film video, but in corporate media as well. Popular culture addresses the traditional confessional process in less of an educational way than amateur video. Gabriel Solice, a leading character in the popular television show Desperate Housewives, regularly goes to “confession” but rarely handles it in the traditional way. A process that once was anonymous, fulfilling and normalizing is starting to be portrayed in today’s popular culture as open and not very conforming of the traditional methods. Corporate media is creating idiosyncrasies in the confessional processing, and these idiosyncrasies are acting as cues to amateur filmmakers. YouTube has been a breeding ground for video bloggers, the new confessional process, with lonelygirl15 pioneering the trend. The linked video is a perfect example of idiosyncrasies showcased in confessional YouTube videos. Our culture has shifted to a society which seeks to attain idiosyncratic statuses, and this has affected the confessional process. It remains to be determined whether or not that culture was formed by amateur video bloggers, or if it was guided by corporate media.

Using the song structure or breaking grounds?

The structure of a song has often been the very grounds for the formation of genres. Whether it be the differentiation of Pop, metal or classical. In many ways, the largest groups of popular music have become eminent because of their remolding of the typical song structure. 

Johnny Cash’s sound was one of the most genre shaking sounds of the rock n roll era. He combined the rhythm and heart of country, with the groove and rawness of rock. His sound of an approaching train gave his songs a rich, catchy, but also haunting expression that completely transformed the music of the 1950’s 60s and to this day. However, he confessed that he couldn’t play any other way which is a far cry from the manufactured sound of several artists that have had one hit wonders and then faded into obscurity, because they stuck to the formula.

Johnny Cash with a link to a video of his song "Big River"

In saying this I do not mean to completely batter the structural resolution of songs, but to make the point that song structuring in the conventional manner as described in chapter 4 of Andrew Goodwin’s book Dancing In the Distraction Factory, is not necessarily the formula to success. The Ramones for instance were notorious for their lack of solos in songs, which typified the Punk attitude of nonconformity, they still enjoyed quite a bit of success however, due to their very catchy, and almost dancable rock songs.

The Ramones with a link attached to their video 'I Wanna Be Sedated'

In the video linked to the picture above, the Ramones also disposed of the typification of the music video and structure to make that has commonly been procured in a similar manner of the chorus and hooks that was discussed by Andrew Goodwin. These include having close-ups of the band, and hooking interest in the fast paced editing of frame and view changes that often keep the beat and constant keep the viewer’s attention. In this, the band is almost having a video thrust upon them, as they sit at a table and all sorts of random and crazy interactions occur around them. In this case, there is no visual narrative present, but the artists are involved in what Dancing In the Distraction Factory refers to as disjunction where the images have no apparent bearing on the lyrics, but yet in this case, the lyrics do not flatly disagree with the images. There is in the video a general sense of the meaning of the lyrics, like a group of slightly crazy people, they sit and have the emotions and thoughts and general feeling of the song occur around them, and we are left to believe, to be thought about in their heads as they sit there.

In this formula of the video, using methods of catching the audience’s attention, there is a sense of repetition that is often used. This can be within songs themselves with the verse and chorus repetition, through the use of other sounds to associate a repetition that will make the listener think of the impact of a similar song, and in the actual physical repetition through the media, either with radio play, or on TV, and to quote Goodwin, “familiarity breeds sales or contempt”. The Critical theorist Theodor Adorno had made this a subject of analysis in several of his papers. He found that popular music uses “part interchangeability to such an extent that we often simply recognize songs because of their similarities”.

In Adorno’s analysis of song he often classified it (in typical Critical school of thought manner) as a product and the chorus adds to the promotion of the ‘product’ in this case the song’s name. One could argue that the trend of alternative songs popularity has been propagated in part  to the breaking of this pattern. Often, (and sometimes purposefully) more alternative songs do not have chorus structure or the name of the song has nothing to do with the lyrics, is not mentioned. However, this has also been the case for several songs that have become classics of our century. In the case of Johnny Cash’s song Folsom Prison Blues, the title simply refers to the general nature of the song. There is a growing trend in the nature of a song to be the focus of the title, or be a object of curiosity, and at times humor. In the case of a myriad of hardcore songs, they often have titles such as, It’s Myself Vs. Being A Man ,The Only Survivor Was Miraculously Unharmed, Hey John, What’s Your Name Again,  and I’ve Got Ten Friends & A Crowbar That Says You Ain’t Gonna Do Jack. Just to name a few.

Visualization of sound, or lack of imagination.

            The visualization of music, whether by music videos, or personalization by identifying personal experience through hearing the lyrics and sound is a concept that theorist often attempt to understand, and refer to it as synaesthesia. In a possible analysis of the medium of the music video, there are several different levels of perspective. In the initial intake of the song, the listener may form their own opinions and visuals from their own imagination. In the book Dancing in the Distraction Factory by Andrew Goodwin, he discusses a survey of students that he conducted. From the results that he gathered from their listening to several tracks he found first that most of the students noted very visual images that they associated in listening, second, that the iconography that several of the students described was very similar in nature, and third, that although a large amount of the imagery that they described was deeply mass-mediated, a good chunk of this imagery was not derived from the music video, but instead from individual personal experience. Earlier in the book, in chapter one, he talks about music videos as a means of meaning fixing, where by association of such visual images we have the meaning of the song fixed in our mind so that we do not have the same fluidity of imagination that we would have if we had just formed meaning from the sound and lyrical meaning.

           There is the argument however, that by cinematic technique (which at times are clique, but nevertheless) the meaning of the song can be taken to an entirely different level of experience that the listener may not of thought of by simple just applying their own imagination. In the case of the band My Chemical Romance and the music video that they made for their song The Ghost of You, the meaning was taken to the level of being a movie with special effects and epic camera technique. The song originally might have conjured stereotypical images of teenage romanticism and angst, but with the concept method and story-telling narrative that used the artists as troubadour performers with the music being used to tell a story, the impact was far greater. In a balance between narrative realism where we regard the artists, here being actors in a story of young men going off to fight. In Goodwin’s book, he describes the concept of synaesthesia where we the audience hear music and thus see images. In addition to this, methods of music videos reenforce images that are being propagated by editing on the tempo of the song, for example, or having the camera being motivated by the actions of the artists performing, be it following them as they run, jump, or change from chorus to verse. The use of abruptly changing the story being filmed from being in narrative form to being abstract and breaking the “fourth wall” adds to the general impact. Through textual analysis, and taking the view of more of a film studies interpretation, that the visual can not only support the song, but give an entirely richer experience of it. For example, in The Ghost of You music video, as first it appears that the band is simply playing at a typical army dance for moral before the troops go over to France for the invasion. Aside from the setting with period costumes, the view of the band might be typical. But upon the playing of the chorus which has a louder and more intense sound, the band is seen to be landing upon the beaches of France, and camera techniques are being applied that might have been right at home in the filming of Saving Private Ryan. The band at this point is acting, in the realism sense, without playing or singing the lyrics. As the chorus ends, the verse brings us back to the American dance where they are playing on stage, and enjoying some drinks in the bar, but as the chorus starts again, the barrier between realism and abstract is drastically broken with the scene change involving the battle invasion on the beach physically invading the dance that is occurring, and the band is once again thrown into the battle during which they have brief recollections of the reassuring words that they said before hand as fleeting glances of the dance our shown on the screen, and as the chorus bridges into the reprise and the solo, the final view of the dance is shown as they left it, and the battle continues. The line of conservative realism and avant-garde abstract is blurred into obscurity as the shots of the dance are not being shown like the battle sequences with the dirt and dark lighting. With the camera shot of the bass player(wearing the glasses), the battle sequence shows his succumbing to a machine gun(corresponding to the sudden drum beating) and the vocalist(who in reality is the bassist’s brother) is now singing in a tormented way on the stage, the drinks bar, and the battle field thus compelling the viewer that the bounds of reality are completely broken by the brother’s emotion of loss.

An image of scenes from The Ghost of You music video. Click to be linked to the video.

        Another example of the visual image of a music video bringing a depth of meaning to the song that may not have been reached by the listener without the addition of camera techniques and art direction is Lily Allen’s video for her song The Littlest Things. Here the lyrics of a typical song that mourns the loss of a romance is transformed into a deeper experience through the use of association, in this case with the use of black and white photography that is reminiscent to the time of the ‘film noir’ genre of the 1940’s involving bleak contrast and shadows. The characters wear raincoats that detectives of that genre, and the singer herself is dressed in the style of the 1960’s with the classic Hepburn hair and mannerisms. The video continually breaks the line between realism and abstract, as she watches memories of herself go by, but it is excused with the concept of her being filmed in a movie as she sings. 

 

Scenes from The Littlest Things music video. Click for link to the video.

Both these examples I give in an attempt to discuss the means of music videos to bring about a synaesthesia experience in the audience through means of film and cinematography. As an aside I should note that both pictures have a link attached that directs to the site of the referred music video. However, for the My Chemical Romance one, the band is signed to Warner Brothers Music which has recently cleared removed a diverse amount of their artist’s music videos off of Youtube. I have searched, and the actual music video cannot be found, although several fan versions are there. The link leads to Myspace video which has not been cleared of the videos yet. In contrast, the label which Lily Allen is signed to; Parlophone, has it’s own Youtube channel which allows them control over the content of their artists. I leave it to you to infer whether Warner Music; one of the largest American record labels, has handled internet music video sharing better than the largest British record label; Parlophone.