Narrative Workshop

"Music videos are simply an extension of the lyrics"

How could you prove/disprove this

One could watch a music video without the lyrics, then with the lyrics and finally, the music video itself with lyrics. Doing this, the test subject can make a judgement weather the music video meant anything alone, added anything to the final outcome and/or was parallel with the lyrics so that without listening to the lyrics, one could understand the main idea behind it.  

What does it mean?

Music videos show a visual meaning of what the lyrics interpret from the directors/artists perspective.

What is the main idea behind this?

Lyrics can simply be replaced with 'ideas' and this quote can simply be linked with Stuart Hall, and then be interpreted with his theory of encoding and decoding. For example, one can look at the lyrics of 'Miley Cyrus - Wrecking ball" and visually picture one thing while the artist/director could want them to picture another thing. In this case, the lyrics are completely parallel to the music video and when there are lyrics involving her on a wrecking ball. So basically, music videos can be seen and related with Stuart Hall's theory of preferred reading as the lyrics basically give you the freedom of constructing these lyrics (ideas) into visual thoughts of what the lyrics may be trying to portray. And similar to a book where you (the reader) create the scenes in your mind, the films that usually follow them construct these ideas for you and show you what the author wanted you to see.

How significant is this?

This is not so significant as we already know that music videos do not take anything away from the lyrics making them a simple extension.

What evidence can you already present for this?

The idea of reading lyrics of a song and portraying it one way in your mind and then watching the music video created for the lyrics to then compare the differences and see what the artist wanted you to see.

Do you agree with this? Explain your answer

I agree with this because music videos are extra to the lyrics and so cannot take away from the lyrics but can only add on as an extension.