An extended analysis of TLC's 'Way Back' music video, with codes and signifiers.

1. MUSIC VIDEO
STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
‘Way Back’ by TLC

2. MUSIC VIDEOS DEMONSTRATE
GENRE CHARACTERISTICS –
ANDREW GOODWINAt the beginning of the music video for ‘Way Back’, we
see a car that suddenly bounces up and down, a
characteristic that is found in many R&B music videos.
After this, we see T-Boz and some other women casually
dancing to a house party, a typical setting of videos of
this genre which often features women dancing in
sexualised ways and wearing little clothing – however,
this is not the case as they are all wearing casual
clothing, such as jeans, camisoles and T-shirts and aren’t
dancing suggestively. This continues when T-Boz walks
into the kitchen and we see Chilli dancing with more
women, one of which is wearing sports clothing, who are
later seen sharing food, challenging convention as
women are usually depicted as ‘eye-candy’ for the males.

3. THERE IS A RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE LYRICS AND
THE VISUALS – ANDREW
GOODWINThe music video’s narrative largely revolves around a neighbourhood
house party in which T-Boz and Chilli sing about how they have known
each other for a long time and are reuniting, which relates to the single
being one of the first that they’ve released as TLC in 15 years: ‘Some
things don’t ever change/Yeah you and me/Cause we go way back’ –
while this could be seen as linking both the lyrics and the visuals
together as the party could be interpreted as that of a reunion, there
isn’t much of a link between meeting somebody after years apart and
spending time at a house party

4. THERE IS A RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE MUSIC AND
THE VISUALS – ANDREW
GOODWINThe music of ‘Way Back’ has a slow tempo and relaxing, chill-out like
mood that is reflected in the smooth transitioning from the driveway
to the kitchen at the beginning of the video and the casual, slow
choreography that can be seen throughout the visual.

5. THE DEMANDS OF THE RECORD LABEL WILL
INCLUDE THE NEED FOR LOTS OF CLOSE-
UPS OF THE ARTIST AND THE ARTIST MAY
DEVELOP MOTIFS WHICH RECUR ACROSS
THEIR WORK – ANDREW GOODWIN
Throughout the video, we see close-ups of T-Boz and Chilli, as well
as guest artist Snoop Dogg – this is common in R&B music videos as
their record company intends to promote the images of these artists,
along with their music, as much as possible to raise awareness
among consumers and fans of the genre. Using close-ups and
extreme close-ups of the artists emphasises their importance in the
video and results in the audience associating their image & style with
their music.

6. THERE ARE FREQUENT
REFERENCES TO THE NOTION
OF LOOKING AND
PARTICULARLY VOYEURISTIC
TREATMENT OF THE FEMALE
BODY
Although the women featured in the main video are not objectified or
sexualised, the only use of voyeurism in ‘Way Back’ is when a female
dancer can be seen dancing with Snoop Dogg between 2.56 and 3.05;
a lot of focus is placed on her body as she is wearing a strapless top
and shorts, which is often used in videos of the genre in order to
appeal to male viewers and reinforce the domination of men over
women.

7. THERE IS OFTEN INTERTEXTUAL
REFERENCES – ANDREW
GOODWIN
This video does not have any intertextual references, which is not
unusual in the genre as most videos do not include them in the video
or in the song’s lyrics.

8. WHETHER THE VIDEO IS PRIMARILY
PERFORMANCE-BASED, NARRATIVE
BASED OR CONCEPT-BASED AND
HOW AN ELEMENT OF EACH IS
USED IN IT – ANDREW GOODWINThe ‘Way Back’ music video can be seen to primarily be performance-
based as it features T-Boz and Chilli performing the song while
dancing with friends at a house party and it doesn’t wholly create a
narrative in which a message and story are constructed to
communicate the song’s lyrics – rather, it focuses on the performance
of the artists and the bright, sunny party atmosphere presented in the
video.

9. CHARACTERS - PROPP
As the video for ‘Way Back’ is not constructed around a narrative, we
do not see any character archetypes such as hero, mentor, villain or
donor, so we can’t apply this theory to the visual.

10. STRUCTURE - TODOROV
As mentioned in the previous slide, the visual isn’t structured with a
narrative in mind, so we can’t apply this theory, given that there is no
disruption of an equilibrium or restoration of it, for example.

11. BINARY OPPOSITES THEORY
- STRAUSS
Due to the lack of narrative structure and character archetypes in the
music video, Strauss’ binary opposites theory cannot be applied – no
hero or villain, or conflicting groups/societies are seen.

12. CODES AND SIGNIFIERS
Mood and atmosphere – an uplifting, sunny tone is created in the music
video, which is evident in the house party setting and the people in the
background playing games and sharing food, as well as dancing with T-Boz
and Chilli.
The artist(s) – T-Boz and Chilli, the members of TLC, wear summer-type
clothes; the former wears a Michael Jackson top, jeans and a long dark green
jacket with buttons and gold studs, while the latter wears gold jewellery,
jeans and a white top. These items of clothing, especially the jewellery, are
also typically seen as casual street wear.
Message of visual codes – the video can partly be seen to relate to the song’s
lyrics, as TLC sings about meeting a friend and spending time together after
a long time apart from each other, remembering the good times and
catching up on what’s been happening; they do this while spending time at a
house party, in which T-Boz walks onto a driveway and later enters the
kitchen, where she meets Chilli. Parties are often where friends that haven’t
seen each other for a long time meet each other again and talk about what
they’ve been doing during that time.