Music Theorists 2 - Sven E Carlsson

Sven E Carlsson’s Theory

Sven E Carlsson stated that music video is a many faceted multi-discursive phenomenon that is communicated through the TV screen and its speakers via carriers of information such as, the music, the lyrics and the moving images.

Carlsson believed that music videos, in general, fall into two main groups; performance clips where the video mostly shows an artist (or artists) singing or/and dancing; and conceptual clips where the video shows something else during its duration often with artistic ambitions.

Standard Clip

A music videos that more or less contains a filmed singer blended with inserted images. A standard clip is meant to be dynamic and has many variations. The vocalist may actively participate in the story while simultaneously standing outside the video offering self-reflexive commentary; he may have an alter ego e.g. a cartoon character.

There are three pure forms of visual tradition in music video;

Performance Clip

If a music video clip contains mostly filmed performance e.g. a video that shows the vocalist in more than one setting, then it is a performance clip. The performance can be of three types: song performance, dance performance and instrumental performance.

In certain types of perfromances the performer is often made into a materialization of the commerical exhibitionist, this is where the performer is made into almost a selling item; someone that fans often aspire to be and these scenes will be extremely high in quality and have a gloss to them. 

The exhibitionist wants success and tries to evoke the charisma of stardom and sexuality. Another type is the televised bard, which is a singing storyteller who uses on screen images instead of inner, personal images. The the third and final type is the elctronic shaman, sometimes the shaman is invisible and only his/her voice that anchor the visuals and they often shift between multiple shapes.

Narrative Clip

If a music video clip is understood as a silent movie to a musical background it is a narrative clip. A narrative contains a story that is easy to follow and may not contain any lip-synchronisation.

Art Clip

If a music video contains no perceptable visual narrative and contains no lip-synchronisation singing then it is a pure art clip. These are normally associated with more modern, experimental music. 

My video which supports this theory

Lady Gaga - Alejandro

typical of sven E carlssons' theory is a commercial exhibitionist, a prime example of that is lady gaga! it also has a narrative as their is a sort of play going on in the background, she is ALL about experimental art and their is a MASSIVE performance going on throughout the entire video!