POST M

ODERN MUSIC

VIDEOS

Z O E RA M S D A L E - C L A R K

POSTMODERNISM IN MUSIC VIDEOSWhat postmodern factors feature in music videos?• Irony• Playing with conventions• Intertextuality• Black humour (leaves you answering more questions)• Pastiche (pasting together and commenting on things of the past)• Magic realism (exaggeration)• Different perspectives (excusing all values of judgement)• Bricolage (construction or creation from a diverse range of available things)• Cultural flattening (weakening and devaluation of cultural identities, symbols,

icons and traditions)• Knowingness (cynicism)• Hybridization (swap purity for new combos of genres, styles and media) • Eclecticism (drawing upon multiple theories/ideas to gain complementary insight)

However, the postmodern view that there is no metanarrative is criticised for there being no right or wrong – having no central belief system leads to a lack of morality.

EXAMPLES OF POSTMODERN MUSIC ARTISTS• Lady Gaga• Green Day• Nirvana• Pink Floyd• Nicki Minaj• Lorde• Beck• The Beatles• Radiohead• Madonna• Iggy Azalea

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LADY GAGA

VIDEO ANALYSISGaga’s videos seem to always have elements of being cinematic with the use of

postmodern element pastiche, meaning that she has imitated elements of cinema with the screen title and also at the end of the music video where there are the credits running at the end. However, these defy traditional conventions of a film as they run in the opposite direction to what would be expected.

The narrative of this music video links to a key postmodernist view – Lyotard’s postmodern condition which was first published by Jean-Francois Lyotard in 1979. With the ideology of their being a grand narrative, this is evident with the lack of a strong message being present in this video as the lyrics in the video talk about not being able to get any reception on her telephone as she is in a club, however, the video shows Gaga being in prison and Beyoncé coming to bail her out.

Another postmodern element that is used in the music video is cultural flattening through the use of provocative dancing, minimal clothing and swearing as the director attempts to reduce the stigma around this meaning that the culture around these identities and symbols are weakened and devalued.

VIDEO ANALYSISWhen the guards bring Gaga into the prison and take her into her cell, they take off

her clothes and one says to the other “I told you she didn’t have a ****” which has intertextual references to the rumours that have been displayed across the media about Lady Gaga having a penis. I believe that these subtle mentions in videos, not just Gaga’s, are used by the music artist to try and deter rumours being made and respond to what the media has to say in an unconventional way.

Using Goodwin’s theory and looking at the narrative and imagery in the video, the audience will see that the video is fairly disjunctive meaning that the song has nothing to do with the video which is seen as an extremely postmodern element.

In this music video, there is a lot of product placement and consumerism in which cinematography is used to highlight certain aspects of the video. For example, in the prison yard when Gaga is seen getting a phone off of one of the other inmates which is seen through the use of a lingering close up shot on the phone which is served by virgin mobile – product placement.