Song representations - Street life

Firstly, when looking at 'Stop Where you Are' we see a very almost angelic song, coupled with an equally as beautiful video. The main story of it features a the singer walking around a very bland area and bumping into many different stereotypes of people you may see on the street. Though, the story in the video almost has a moral that is suggesting not too judge a book by its cover of people in different types of street life, as in the video they are represented as everyone sees them when she walks up to the people, though after they show their true expressions.

Unfinished Sympathy is the next video which focuses on street life. We see the main vocal artist Shara Nelson going about daily life, walking along the streets of New York. In the video she is represented as an everyday person and interestingly not as a celebrity or anyone special. She walks among everyone else though is not hassled for photos and such like it may be in a real life scenario, which could be showing us how the artists are normal people, or want to be seen as 'normal people'. An An interesting point about this video though is that all 3 other band members appear throughout the video, simply walking in the background. We first see an out of focus image of Daddy G walking with his son behind Shara, which for those who don't know the band would look like normal person - possibly what they are trying to get across, that they don't care about fame. We then see Robert Del Naja come from a telephone box and start walking much the same though drops off, then finally 3D appears towards the end. Overall then, the artists in this video are all seen as so normal doing a normal everyday thing and wearing normal clothes - much unlike outlandish outfits worn by other celebrities in videos at the time. Another point, is the representation of street life in the video, as we see all forms of it ranging from bikers to the vibrant clothing of black females at the time. This representation highlights how the artist is centered around the street and so promotes what they believe in, and possibly where they came from.

Finally, Heaven by Emeli Sande is an interesting video which represents how all people spend their lives in street culture. It focuses highly on the representation of how the streets have been part of peoples lives since childhood, and really focuses on the beauty of the streets and memories that the singer has of it. On the other hand, it almost represents how modern life is much worse on the streets due to its use of dark dull shots when focusing on modern images, though when seeing her early life in the streets it is vibrant and happy.