Emeli Sande - Heaven

Production and Record Labels

Emeli Sande’s hit single ‘Heaven’ was released by Virgin Records on the 12th of August 2011 in amongst a series of national scandals including the England riots, the assassination of Osama bin Laden, and the marriage of William and Kate.

It’s distinctive video was produced by Mike Spencer, who is known for working with many famous artists including Ellie Goulding, Kylie Minogue, and Rudimental.

Music Videos

Music videos as a whole tend to be used by artist to express their personality or a story to go with the song, however, they can be used to make social and political statements; for instance: many rap videos make reference to police brutality or the inaccurate portrayal of different races in the media.

In the case of ‘Heaven’, Emeli Sande refers to race, class, and economy, as the video is in an urban location in more poverty stricken settings. It also features pleasant clips of people going about their normal lives but in harsher environments, suggesting the difficulty of being a person of colour.

Intertextual References and Themes

-Obviously the single is called ‘Heaven’, which pulls our attentions to religion and ‘The Bible’ insinuating that god is there but he’s not listening to her prayers as the song says ‘Will you recognize me when I'm stealing from a car’

-Religion (Title, “I wait with good intentions”)

-Hedonism-The persuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence (“Will you recognize me in the flashing lights? I try to keep my heartbeat…”)

-Guilt/regret (“something’s gone inside me, and I can’t get it back”.)

-Taken from: https://www.slideshare.net/Yvonne44/emeli-sande-heaven-revision-09-01-18iii

Genre and Videos of the Same Genre

-‘Heaven’ is a mixture of many genres; for instance, Breakbeat, gospel, trip hop, and R&B

-Other videos in these genres tend to uses media techniques such as chiaroscuro and extreme use of jump cuts, as well as, elaborate dance sequences that match the complicated beat.

-Emeli’s video however doesn’t use any of these things. In fact, the producer has used filters to add in vast amounts of colour and the mainly consists of her singing.

Audience Reception

-The single was critically acclaimed

-Top of the UK charts and was awarded number 1 top track by BBC 1’s Fern Cotton

-It featured on many external alums; for instance, ‘Now 80’

-It has been remixed a number of times by different artists as well as Sande who released an acoustic version of the song on the same album.

Representations in the Video

•The video supports the good imagery of people of colour and the capability of strong, independent women.

•Sande also supports freedom of religion within the video through the imagery of crucifixes.

•Interestingly it was societies influence on shaming people that inspired the song. When talking about the creation of ‘Heaven’ Sande said…

“Heaven came from a conversation I was having with my producer Naughty Boy, we were talking about what it means to be good in this day and age, and how it’s harder for our generation because things move so fast, and how there’s so many influences and avenues, and he said, you just have to keep your heart clean. It was the imagery of a clean or dirty heart that inspired me, and we wrote it in about half an hour. I knew I wanted it to be my first song from the off.”

She also said …

“I definitely believe in god and I believe in heaven, although I don’t follow a religion. Heaven was about trying to be good.”

Analysis

•The first thing I noticed when I began to analyse this video was the use of a filter to age the video. This could be a link to Sande’s comment about how it is difficult to keep your heart clean, as it was easier to do so in the past. Therefore, ageing the image of the video could be her trying to simplify being good again.

•This lead me on to thinking about the lense flair featured throughout the video. I recon this is Sande’s depiction of god shining his light down or simply the light from heaven inviting those with good or “Clean” hearts in.

•This then made me think about who hearts are the cleanest, to which the only answers I could think of were Children and animals. I then searched the video for either of these things. I couldn’t find any animals but I did find repeated imagery of children and childhood; for instance the two little girls laughing on the swing, which reminded me of this comment she made in the same interview about the single.-“My idea of heaven? ... I felt it at Christmas with the family around. Kids are so pure and innocent, and one was learning the piano. It reminded me of when I was learning.”

•I thought the camerawork in the video was particularly interesting as the producer repeatedly used shaky-cam. This might be a suggestion of humanity and our ability to falter but still come out with a correct image.

•This lead me on to their use of montages. Montages repeatedly came up throughout the video, but they caught my eye because every shot within the montages were shaky-cam. This could be a comment about how chaotic the world has become and how the public runs with the chaos.

•Close ups and extreme close ups: Close ups are used throughout the video and I believe that they’re extremely important. This is because people of a multitude of races are featured in them symbolising how we are all equal no matter what age, background, sex, colour, orientation, we are all human and nothing and no one should underestimate the importance of that.

•In addition, colour filters and costume: The videos use of colour filters reiterates the symbolism of every colour under the sun coming together as a metaphor for the unity between us all. In contrast the use of costume was interesting as Sande’s appearance was powerful and get subtle as she wore a simple black dress with subtle makeup however her hair was in a pompadour style, expressing her strength as a women and power as an influencer. The supporting cast members costumes denote variations in class as many were seen wearing typically lower class clothing and ragged garments associated with the homeless/poverty stricken areas.