Research - Andrew Goodwin about structure

Goodwin suggests that music videos differ from Todorov's theory (equilibrium → disruptions → resolution) because songs do not have traditional narrative structures. Many times, music videos use the singer as both narrator and character. The singer also directly addresses to the camera, which gets the viewers involved.

Music videos often rely on repetition because of choruses or repeated lines in the songs. This repetition creates familiarity to the listeners/viewers. However, Goodwin also claims that even though the structure of music videos is different from a narrative, they do have closures. The videos should build a climax/constant repetition before fading away. 

The visual pleasure that music videos can provide, encourages viewers to watch it repeatedly, which is a way of promoting the music. Therefore, Goodwin categorised music videos under three types of structures - illustration, amplification and disjuncture.

Illustration - it is when the music video follows the story of the lyrics, portraying what is being sung. Dance is often used to establish the moods in the song. As for example in the following music video 'Girlfriend' by Avril Lavigne: 

We can see a series of events happening between the guy she is singing about and his actual girlfriend. We can also see how Avril Lavigne is trying to interfere in their relationship to become his new girlfriend (example: 0:11 to 0:21 or 1:03 to 1:08). She is the narrator and the character of the story. She performs both the character whose lyrics are from her perspective, and the actual girlfriend who she is singing about. In between these events, we get Avril Lavigne performance as a singer with a lot of dancing establishing the fun mood of the song (example: 1:14 to 1:19). 

Amplification - it is when the music video doesn't exactly stick to the lyrics, but add new meanings to it. One example follows in "Born To Die" by Lana Del Rey:

The song is about love and it has a quite dramatic tone. The very first shot we see is Lana cuddling with a lover, already establishing this atmosphere (0:01 to 0:11). Soon she appears in a church all dressed in white (0:28 to 0:43), which creates a heavenly atmosphere and it might be connected to the idea of 'death' she portrays in the lyrics. We get various scenes showing her and her lover enjoying each other (1:02 to 1:05, 1:25 to 1:30). Eventually, she tragically dies at the end (4:16), which has a very clear link with the lyrics that sing about making the most of her moments with her beloved because we all die in the end. Her death in the end also implies that the base track in the church it's actually Lana singing in heaven. 

Disjuncture - it is when there is no connection between the video and the lyrics, or even when the video contradicts the lyrics. In Britney Spears' music video "Hold it Against Me", the lyrics are about lust and desire, whereas the music video is much more a representation of Britney Spears' career as a singer and how she is very polemical within the media.

Lastly, videos from songs written for movies very often incorporate images from the movie in the video. Like for example in "Underground" by Avril Lavigne, which the song was made for the 'Alice in Wonderland' film by Tim Burton (you can see the film extracts from 2:50 to 3:06):

In this case the purpose of the video is not only to promote the music but also to promote the film.