It’s a Hollywood maxim: If you’ve got a hit, do a sequel. So will.i.am, fresh off his blockbuster “Yes We Can” video for Barack Obama, is back with another. This time he calls it “We Are The Ones.”
Like most sequels, it fails to capture the full magic of the original. It has more Hollywood stars (Ryan Phillippe, Jon Leguizamo, Jessica Alba), less of a musical hook, and almost no sampling of the candidate. It also takes the whole messianic Obama thing to new level. Obama may be able to do a great deal for this country and the world. But can he really create a “world without fear”? That said, millions of people are sure to watch this video, proving again the new, largely-untapped power artists have to use the Internet to shape the nation. This is still only the beginning.
Up From The Comments: Down below, commenter RKA notes quite reasonably that Obama’s video might be getting a bad shake, since Hillary supporters can make far worse. To which, Stuart_Zechman replies with a comment for the ages:
In this particular case, normal levels of mediocrity are devastating, because of grand ambitions of the project are embarrassingly exposed and cheapened to a far worse effect. For example: It’s perfectly reasonable to say that Interpol’s first record was brilliant, and the second was crap (not that I think that this is true, but the case has been made by others). If important aspects that were good about the first effort are absent in the second, and the second contains elements that are apparent in their lack of quality, then a simple statement, i.e. “their second record blows” is sufficient.
Also, when addressing a statement such as “their second record blows”, one might keep in mind that repeatedly pointing out that Kelly Clarkson has always been rather not-kewl, and then linking to bad video after bad video of Kelly Clarkson making a fool out of herself doesn’t exactly refute the original argument about Interpol’s second record blowing (which, again, it does not in my actual opinion). So, after watching the videos to which you have linked, I’m able to say confidently that this second video is still about as poor as that Toyota Tundra remake of the original Leroy Jenkins video.
Full Disclosure: Neither of these comments say that Michael Scherer sucks, so I may be overly predisposed to them.