I’m curious what y’all think about the plethera of Obama songs released throughout the election. Here is a collection:
will.i.am
I was a huge fan of the original “Yes We Can” video, and I still think it’s a great piece of art. Obama should get a lot of credit, since he wrote the speech (lyrics), but will.i.am’s idea of mixing speech and melody was brilliant. Plus, the execution was pretty much flawless. Will.i.am’s second video was okay, but I was pretty skeptical of the third one. First of all, he’s selling it on iTunes, which seems weird to me. Writing a song about Obama’s historic election, releasing it the day after he won, and then selling it on iTunes…? Is it just me or does that bother you? More importantly, though, I don’t think it’s a great song–maybe it’s just me, but it seems a little egoistic. Still love the first one though.
Ludacris
This one speaks for itself… he calls Hillary a “bitch.” I’m gonna have to label it as “dumb.”
Nas
I’m okay with this one. Plus, he performed it on The Colbert Report so that gives him bonus points.
Twista, Joe Budden, and John Mayer
I love this one. The rapping is crazy and John Mayer is the man.
LL Cool J and Wyclef Jean
I don’t mind this one. The lyrics aren’t very intelligent, or intellectual, but the song has good intentions and they come off quite earnestly. Also, Wyclef is awesome.
So that’s my Obama song roundup. To my surprise, there are a ton more out there! Which one do you like best? Did I miss any good ones? Let me know what you think–and remember, the next t-shirt will be going out on thursday! Get your comments in!
The “Yes We Can” video may have had the most impact of any viral video this election. It’s like the positive foil to “macaca” and its ilk. It’s nice once in a while for YouTube to reveal something inspiring instead of embarrassing.
I think if you can call the first will.i.am video a song, it is by far the best. For the rest of the videos, I’m a fan of the Cool J and Wyclef song. You are right, the lyrics aren’t intelligent and LL doesn’t have good rap skills in this song, but the rhythm is hot and Wyclef IS awesome!
Also: i was looking for the original version of “If I was president” by Wyclef and found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuWlxzgpBqo
I like it, what do you guys think?
You forgot the best one of all!
The editing is flawless.
I really liked the “Yes we can” video, but I thought that after the success of the first one will.i.am was really trying to capitalize on himself with the second two. One of my favorite Obama music videos that I saw that you didn’t post up was this one:
It was written by Dave Stewart who writes songs for a lot of famous artists. He’s the guy singing with the guitar. Anyway, I really liked this song and it had the will.i.am thing going for it with all the celebrities singing along with it. It’s a shame it wasn’t more popular.
I finally watched the song roundup and it’s awesome! I gotta say that I loved the first will.i.am song because John Legend is simply the man.
I’m also a big fan of the John Mayer remix with Twista and Joe Budden. The rapping is pretty crazy and the tune is a great one to put it to.
And Goodwin, thanks for that wonderfully hilarious link! The shots of McCain while he’s getting Ba-rocked are amazing
Oh and one more thing…
In the spirit of this song roundup, Tupac would like to make a contribution to the blog (from his song “changes”)
“We gotta make a change…
It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes
Let’s change the way we eat, let’s change the way we live
And lets change the way we treat each other
You see the old way wasn’t working so it’s on us to do
What we gotta do, to survive”
And…
“And although it seems heaven sent
We ain’t ready, to see a black president, uhh”