The Rhythm Image: Music Videos and New Audiovisual Forms (New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media)

Music videos play a critical role in our age of ubiquitous streaming digital media. They project the personas and visions of musical artists; they stand at the cutting edge of developments in popular culture; and they fuse and revise multiple frames of reference, from dance to high fashion to cult movies and television shows to Internet memes. Above all, music videos are laboratories for experimenting with new forms of audiovisual expression. The Rhythm Image explores all these dimensions. The book analyzes, in depth, recent music videos for artists ranging from pop superstar The Weeknd to independent women artists like FKA twigs and Dawn Richard. The music videos discussed in this book all treat the traditional themes of popular music: sex and romance, money and fame, and the lived experiences of race and gender. But they twist these themes in strange and unexpected ways, in order to reflect our entanglement with a digital world of social media, data gathering, and 24/7 demands upon our attention. "Music videos play a critical role in our age of ubiquitous streaming digital media. They project the personas and visions of musical artists; they stand at the cutting edge of developments in popular culture; and they fuse and revise multiple frames of reference, from dance to high fashion to cult movies and television shows to Internet memes. Above all, music videos are laboratories for experimenting with new forms of audiovisual expression. The Rhythm-Image explores all these dimensions. The book analyzes, in depth, recent music videos for artists ranging from pop superstar The Weeknd to independent women artists like FKA twigs and Dawn Richard. The music videos discussed in this book all treat the traditional themes of popular music: sex and romance, money and fame, and the lived experiences of race and gender. But they twist these themes in strange and unexpected ways, in order to reflect our entanglement with a digital world of social media, data gathering, and 24/7 demands upon our attention."-- Provided by publisher "Music videos project the personas and visions of musical artists; they stand at the cutting edge of developments in popular culture; and they fuse and revise multiple frames of reference, from dance to high fashion to cult movies and television shows to internet memes. Above all, music videos are laboratories for experimenting with new forms of audiovisual expression. The Rhythm Image analyzes, in depth, recent music videos for artists ranging from pop superstar The Weeknd to independent women artists FKA twigs and Dawn Richard. The music videos discussed twist the traditional themes of sex and romance, money and fame, and the lived experiences of race and gender in strange and unexpected ways. In so doing, music videos are shown to reflect our entanglement with a digital world of social media, data gathering, and 24/7 demands upon our attention." -- Provided by the Publisher "Analyzes recent music videos in depth, and considers how they reflect new technologies and new cultural conditions, from an audiovisual perspective"-- Provided by publisher