Throughout the video there are reminders of the September 11th catastrophe. R-Kelly is reminding the American republic that they can stand up tall and fight their fears. During the video when certain words were sung ‘ I am a hero’ there were pictures of some of the firemen that worked day and night to try and save peoples lives after the building had fallen. The title of the song etherises the fact that America thinks they are the greatest country in the world, rightly so unless anyone can prove them wrong after all they did manage to bring back unity and togetherness in the country after such a terrible thing.
During the video there were red, white and blue colours shown to make the colours of the American flag be etherised.
The second video watched by my class was called country road and was sung by Hermes house band. As they appear to be a not very well known band, I expect that the song before I have even headed it wouldn’t be as good as R- Kelly’s as he has a reputation to hold and wouldn’t produce a song that couldn’t get him to a number one spot in the chart.
The Hermes House band song was originally sung by John Denver a long while back. The version produced by Hermes house band has a much more up – beat rhythm section using a mix of synthesised instruments and real instruments. There was a synthesised beat, I noticed a Harmonica, banjo, guitar and cymbals played
The video was set in the 1800s in West America, I can tell from the costume worn by both men and women. The idea was to show what America looked like 200 or more years ago.
In this video there is more than just one person singing as R - Kelly is a solo artist Hermes house band is a band. During the video it was obvious that women were treated differently then compared to now and were given no respect then. As when there was a clip of video in the bar and one of the singers slapping one of the ladies on the ars randomly showing no regard for her feelings.
There was a part in the video when there was a showdown, which is a typical, western theme. Horses and carts were shown throughout the video.
I noticed that the lyrics in the song were very repetitive and to break the song down they speeded up the tempo of the song and slowed it down. There was a wide range of crescendos and diminuendos used, and when the song was coming to an end there was poco – rit, which brought the song to a final close. At the end of the song there was a ‘THE END’ written which is a classic trademark of western films at the end.
