Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T20:27:57.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The aesthetics of music video: an analysis of Madonna's ‘Cherish’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

When we become engaged with a music video, what draws us in? What constitutes craft or artistry in the genre? Theorists of music video have usually addressed these questions from the perspective of sociology, film theory or popular cultural studies. Film theory, in particular, has had a tremendous influence on the analysis of music video, because of the two genres' apparently similar structuring of sound and image. But by the criteria of film, music videos tend to come off as failed narratives; the genre's effectiveness eludes explanation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bordwell, D. 1985. The Classical Hollywood Cinema: Film Style and Mode of Production to 1960 (New York)Google Scholar
Ellenzweig, A. 1992. The Homo-erotic Photograph (New York)Google Scholar
Erickson, R. 1955. The Structure of Music: A Listener's Guide. A Study of Music in Terms of Melody and Counterpoint (New York)Google Scholar
Goodwin, A. 1992. Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture (Minneapolis)Google Scholar
Hayward, P. 1991. ‘Desire caught by its tail: the unlikely return of the merman in Madonna's “Cherish”’, Cultural Studies, 5:1, pp. 98106CrossRefGoogle Scholar
von Laban, R. 1974. Laban's Principles of Dance and Movement Notation (Boston)Google Scholar
Mercer, K. 1993. ‘Monster metaphors: notes on Michael Jackson's Thriller’ in Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader, ed. Frith, S., Goodwin, A. and Grossberg, L. (New York) pp. 93109Google Scholar
Meyer, L. 1989. Style and Music: Theory, History and Ideology (Philadelphia)Google Scholar
Morton, M. 1993. ‘Don't go for second sex, baby!’, in The Madonna Connection: Representation Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory, ed. Swichtenberg, C. (Boulder) pp. 213–35Google Scholar
Ong, W. 1985. Orality and Literacy: The Technology of the Word (New York)Google Scholar
Reti, R. 1978. The Thematic Process in Music (Westport)Google Scholar
Rose, T. 1994. Black Noise (Hanover)Google Scholar
Seurat, G. 1945. ‘Letter to Jules Christopher. August 28, 1890’ in Artists on Art from the XIV to the XXth Century, ed. Goldwater, R. and Traves, M. (New York) p. 375Google Scholar
da Vinci, Leonardo. 1961. Leonardo da Vinci on Art and the Artist, ed. and introduced by Chastel, Andre (New York)Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, L. 1968. Philosophical Investigations (New York)Google Scholar