This document provides an analysis of Beyoncé's music video for "Love on Top" across several categories. It summarizes that the video is a pure performance piece showing Beyoncé singing and dancing in different costumes without a narrative. The lyrics discuss love and relationships. Beyoncé wrote the song herself and it was a commercial success, helping promote her album. The video seems aimed at young women and children due to its upbeat dance routine and portrayal of Beyoncé as a role model, but also appeals to men through revealing costumes. Beyoncé is represented as happy and enthusiastic through her smiling and dancing that connects to the lyrics.

1. Beyoncé – Love on Top
L.I.I.A.R. Analysis

2. Language
This music video is a pure performance video as there is no narrative or
abstract element in it because the full video shows Beyoncé singing and
dancing in range of different costumes. However, the lyrics talk about
love to aim it at her target audience of young women as this is
something that they will be experiencing at experimenting with. This
enables the audience to connect with the song and the lyrics more
because they can relate to them more, giving them more meaning and
making them more powerful. Throughout the video Beyoncé is smiling
which could suggest how happy she is for feeling like this/in love and
could suggest to the audience how Beyoncé is feeling in her relationship
with Jay-Z. Beyoncé is lip-syncing throughout the whole video to make
the lyrics seem more direct towards the audience because it is like she
is singing towards the audience, as if she is telling someone, perhaps
who she loves. This also shows that it is a pure performance music
video because she is always singing to make it look more like a live
performance rather than just a music video.

3. Ideology
This is a pure performance music video
therefore there isn’t an ideology other than the
artist performing/dancing to the song. There are
no messages behind this music video because
there isn’t a narrative. Although the lyrics talk
about love and relationships which is one of the
messages to the lyrics.

4. Institution
Beyoncé (the artist) wrote this song, with the help from Terius Nash
and Shea Taylor and the production of it was also from Beyoncé
and Taylor. This song was off her fourth album titled 4. The song
was released September 12th 2011 and remained at number one on
the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for seven consecutive
weeks, selling over one million copies. Beyoncé is signed to
Columbia records which is a conglomerate of Sony, which is part of
the Big Three. This shows how global Beyoncé is as she is signed
to a major label. Other artists that are signed to this label include:
Calvin Harris; The Script; Pharrell Williams; Pink Floyd and One
Direction. Beyoncé increased her popularity and sales of her new
song, ‘Love on Top’ by singing this song at the MTV Video Music
Awards in which she announced her pregnancy of her baby Blue at
the end of her performance. This paid off as she won her 17th
Grammy Award at the 55th Grammy Awards on February 10th 2013
for Best Traditional R&B Performance for ‘Love on Top’.

5. Audience
I would say that this music video is targeted at young women
due to the performance as it consists of a dance routine which
I think tend to be targeted more at young girls, because this
dance is very fun and upbeat which they can dance along to.
Also the video consists of five male dancers in the
background to appeal more to the female audience. However
this could be argued because Beyoncé tends to show quite a
lot of her breasts in the video to appeal to the male audience
as well as the female audience. I think that the directors have
done this to appeal to both genders in order to please
everyone and make the video more successful. Moreover,
Beyoncé is singing and dancing in the video which may aspire
young children to look up to her as a role model because this
tends to be what a lot of young girls want to do when they are
older. Therefore seeing Beyoncé doing this in her music video
makes her a good role model for kids and targets this video
towards them.

6. Representation
Beyoncé is represented as very fun because she is smiling
throughout the whole video to show that she is enjoying
herself and having a good time. She is also dancing around a
lot, as well as the back-up dancers, to show her enthusiasm
and love towards the song and link with the lyrics. Therefore,
her dancing around could show how she feels inside, in
relation to the song/lyrics. She also makes some dance
moves that represent certain words that she sings, such as
when she sings “you’re the one I can always call” she puts
her hand next to her ear as if she is calling someone to make
the lyrics clearer for the audience and perhaps to make the
dance routine easier for the audience to remember and dance
to because the actions match the lyrics.