Students' music video
Moonlight - Kali Uchis
Originally performed by Kali Uchis, Moonlight is a pop R&B song with lots of retro influences. This student’s music video applied many elements from Andrew Goodwin’s theory: link between music & visuals, notions of looking, link between lyrics & visuals, and following the song’s genre characteristics. It explores themes of women empowerment, which can be shown through the following visual elements:
Blinding Lights - The Weeknd
The original song of the music video, Blinding Lights by The Weeknd, is categorized as a synth-pop, R&B song with lots of retro influences. This student’s music video applied many elements from Andrew Goodwin’s theory, such as notions of looking, link between music & visuals , link between lyrics & visuals, and following the song’s genre characteristics. Despite not having a massive budget like professional products, the students behind this music video still managed to make the visuals compelling to watch:
Professional music video
Save Your Tears - The Weeknd
The music video can be interpreted in different ways, and in my way, there are two different narratives unfolding in the song and the music video, respectively. The song itself tells the story of the artist’s acknowledgement of breaking someone’s heart. Meanwhile, the music video follows darker themes, exploring the narrative of an artist’s emotional struggle between fame and genuine human connection, serving as a critique of the entertainment industry, thus challenging the conventions of the song's genre synth-pop and R&B.
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The video follows some elements from Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory, such as:
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Notions of looking
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Link between visuals & lyrics
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Link between visuals & music
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Following genre conventions
cardigan - Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift, arguably one of the most popular artists of all time, released her music video for her album "folklore"'s title track "cardigan" in 2020. Despite following pop conventions like exploring themes of love and self-reflection, Taylor usually takes a lot of revenue risks in her productions through creative decisions, which is portraying the song's meanings through abstract forms and fairytale-like visual concepts, thus can be hard to understand for some groups of audience.
Here are the elements of Andrew Goodwin's Music Video Theory that were applied in this music video:
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Notions of looking
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Link between visuals & lyrics
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Link between visuals & music
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Following genre conventions
Prom Queen - Beach Bunny
Beach Bunny, an indie-rock band based in Chicago, is popular for their songs such as "Sports", "Cloud 9", and "Prom Queen", which was released in 2018. As the music video couldn't have had as much budget as other mainstream productions, the directors couldn't invest in as many glamorous venues, outfits, or visual effects. However, this pushed them to be more creative with their creative decisions. The video critiques unrealistic beauty standards on young women, following the linear narrative of a young girl (starring the main vocalist of the band)'s journey of fighting against beauty standards, exploring themes self-love and acceptance.
In the video, there were lots of applications of the Andrew Goodwin's Theory:
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Notions of looking
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Link between visuals & lyrics
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Link between visuals & music
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Following genre conventions
Professional Digipak
Observation
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Overall, the panels of a digipak have to match each other's concepts in terms of color palette, typography, iconography to reinforce branding of the product as well as the artist (e.g. Ariana Grande's Sweetener).​
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Digipak front covers are usually kept simple with an impressionable photo (often is the artist starring, or a symbolic prop), the album's title, and the artist's name to attract the audience's attention. In some cases, there would be little to no text displayed on the cover if the artist has more than enough recognition to promote their products (e.g. The Beatles' Abbey Road).​
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Some elements can appear more than once throughout the album to strengthen branding and protect the artist and label's rights. For example, the album's title, the artist's name, the label's name, tracklist, and copyrights are frequently displayed on a digipak's CD and back cover (e.g. Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia). Additionally, for integrity purposes, barcodes are inserted in the back cover of the digipaks as well.
Sweetener
ARIANA GRANDE
Visuals & Color scheme
​The digipak has a soft, muted color palette with colors like beige, white, with pink tint, evoking a sense of intimacy, and warmth. The dreamy look, low contrast, and saturation of the visuals make Sweetener completely different from previous albums by Ariana, which were darker and more contracted. This change of color scheme reflects growth, vulnerability, and optimism, showing Ariana’s personal growth as an artist and a person.
Typography
The simple, yet elegant serif font in this design is only used in lowercase, which again, contrasts with Ariana’s previous uses of bold, uppercase typefaces, connotating her maturity and sincerity.
Iconography & Symbolism
Ariana Grande is made to look innocent and natural with a simple top and ponytail, instead of full-glam makeup in her previous looks. Combined with the nude background, the design aims to portray her sincere self. With minimalistic design choices, the audience can focus on the upside-down portrait of Ariana, suggesting a major self-transformation.
Branding
Sweetener album is a rebrand of Ariana Grande, helping her break free from the mature, edgy pop-star image in her old projects and move to a more vulnerable artistic identity. In this era, she will show off her maturity while still having her music appealing to the mass audience.
Artists' social media/website
​The Weeknd
Instagram page
Branding: The Weeknd brands himself as a pop star as his image surrounds themes of love, fame. Meanwhile, the futuristic, retro design choices help reflect the synth-pop, R&B genre of many tracks in his most recent albums such as Save Your Tears and Blinding Lights in After Hours.
Main content: The Weeknd kept his social media platform professional as he rarely posts about his personal life. The contents dominating his account are mainly promotional: album, merchandise, tour releases, recaps, etc. For example, in the given photo (on the left), The Weeknd has been posting about his world tour After Hours till Dawn while teasing his upcoming album Hurry Up Tomorrow. Additionally, The Weeknd also stars in the majority of his posts since he has to promote himself as an artist along with his products.
Visual style & Color scheme: The posts on The Weeknd’s account are all highly polished with strong contrast between colors and dark, dramatic lighting. The palette consists of colors such as black, blue (Dawn FM), red (After Hours), and orange (Hurry Up Tomorrow). This color scheme helps strengthen The Weeknd’s branding across the products, as the colors are also prominently used in his other products depending on the era, further pushing him and his music’s branding identity of being mysterious, moody, and perhaps addictive.
Fan Interaction: While maintaining his professionalism, The Weeknd actively uses Instagram stories to interact with fans, sharing fan content or at times hold livestreams to allow his fans to listen to a snippet of his new songs. Furthermore, he also has his link to merchandise pinned on top of his profiles for anyone interested without having to search up his website. By only following the accounts that are affiliated to him and most popular fan accounts, The Weeknd can also direct those who check his following list to check out the other products he made.​
