Intertextuality with in Music videos

Intertextuality with in Music videos

The formal definition of intertextuality is  “The way in which one media format is referenced with in another text. “

An example of this is within Dimitri Vegas and Like Mikes latest song, “The Hum” it Involves a chant from an iconic scene from the 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street”. 

Due to the film’s success of being nominated for 148 awards and winning 33 of them this song became a craze in the EDM scene. The chant is a memorable iconic aspect of the film and this hooked the EDM fans at one of the largest stages of them all,”Tomorrowland”.

These two formats of media text leached off of each other’s success and brought fans of both music and film together which increased the impact of the professional product in both texts.

Proof of this success in the music industry in that in this years DJ Mag top 100 DJ’s, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike were placed at #1. They have been trying to climb to the top spot for several years and this year they only released 4 songs, one of which was “The Hum” which hit the number 1 spot on the Belgian music charts.

The reason intertexuality is popular in the music industry is due to its successful qualities.

Advantages of intertextuality: The use of intertextuality in a music video could make the video more appealing to a wider range of people so could gain the artist fans and could increase the success of a song. This would therefore make the artist make more money and increase the overall success of the proffessional project

Disadvantages of intertextuality: The issue with intertextuality is if the people who like the person or thing you refrence dont like the way the artist represents them this could cause the audience to not like the video and then not like the artist so they will lose fans and lose money.conclusion: In my video i would use intertextuality if it fits however if it does not and it is there for no reason i would not use intertextuality in my video because it would not make sence. 

Andrew Goodwin and Laura Mulvey’s Theories

Andrew Goodwin outlines how music visuals interlink such as lyrics being related to the images to amplify the impact of the music video.

He says the visuals are amplifying, illustrative or conceptual; if they are amplifying a more detailed representations of the lyrics is being created. If they are illustrative they mirror the same idea as the lyrics and if they are conceptual they are demonstrating a different concept of the lyrics. He also suggests the same theories between the music and the visuals.

Genre Characteristics:

Goodwin suggests certain traits of a music video relate to the actual music. For example a rock music video would most probably be performance based, however dance music would focus upon upbeat high energy visuals.  

Lyrics and Visuals:

Goodwin also suggests that a music video will mirror the tone and emotion of the lyrics. An example of this is one of my deconstructed videos, “Coldplay – Paradise” which links nature and freedom with the word “Paradise”.

Music and Visuals:

There are 3 ways music and visuals can be interlinked for different effects: illustrative, amplifying and contradicting.

An example of an illustrative connection is “Coldplays – A sky full of skies” in which the video illustrates the lyrics of the songs by focusing the video around space.

An example of an amplified music video is when a music video gives a more in depth insight into the wider meaning of the music.

An example of a contradicting music video is one in which it purposely ignores the music and is there to give the music a new mood or meaning.

Intertextual Reference:

Intertextuality is when various media texts reference and interlink with each other. 


I plan to go against the use intertextuality in my product as I believe there is no opportunity to bring in and use it. I feel as though if I force my product to include intertextuality the effectiveness of it will be reduced,  drawing away the success of my piece. Therefore I will Ignore this process during the construction of my music video.