To provide an insightful take on this music video it'll be a hard task but I promise to be fair, balanced and give the whole possible truth, or at
least the way I see it trying to ignore the excessive praise the single got or the amount of negative backlash it got as well.
In divisive times such as
ours a protest song like "This Has Gotta Stop" is a hard one to sell. There's no doubt that Eric Clapton is a genius guitarist/composer/singer and there's a
whole legacy behind him, as members of super groups such as "The Yardbirds", "Derek and the Dominos", "Blind Faith" and his massive solo career with several
singles, videos and concerts through the decades. This newest isn't much of a memorable one, or at least one single the artist will consider important to his
career. It's a water divisor with some claiming it's a career ending move and others praising for being a vocal hymn of our times that goes against the norm.
Clapton makes a protest against the COVID-19 vaccination, so here's an anti vax song that is destined to cause some controversy despite its simplicity, catchy ways
and the information the artist brings to the table by talking of how wronged the current times are and what the vaccine caused on him - yes, he took it but
felt incredibly bad afterwards with many side-effects.
I enjoyed the song, it's nice to see Clapton's back in shape and I truly believe that his freedom of speech is exercised best when he's doing a music about
the times we live in rather than many obnoxious speeches and rants we see from politicians and unknowns in the media. He's turning pain into art and that's good
and commendable even though he might be contributting to some misinformation and giving voice to the unreasonable in the audience. It's not one of his best
moments but it's not a terrible one, far from being the reason why one would destroy his brilliant works just because he's making himself loud and clear
against something he doesn't agree; neither it's too good as the YouTube comments section of the video makes out to be. It's just an exercise of his rights
and he makes it all too clear and far from being objectionable.
As for the video, it's a nice gathering of animations about brainswashing media, world leaders trying to control the population and a lone soul trying to survive
this new environment of sickness and deaths. You can take it as it's shown or go deeper on several levels. The new roaring twenties is a tough decade to live with
and we've only just begun in difficult extremes of disease, lousy politics, environmental issues, fake news and the loudest voices on the extremes from left and the
right. That's the chaos we live on and that's what Clapton relates in his song that also talks about the negative effects after being vaccinated. His point, his belief.
Definitely not acceptable to some since there's a fight to stop the outbreak and the way to control it, besides the lockdown and isolation at first (of which he was
opposed as well) and now the vaccine.
On a final note, does Clapton deserves the backlash or negative reaction he's getting from the crowd, to the point where the man himself has said some personal
relationships were broken in between? I don't think so. The cancel culture is trying really hard to cancel him and it's not deserving. His legacy is far more important
than this whole debate and that's the real thing that really gotta stop, the reputation killing over one point of view. Sure, he's not helping the cause against the
disease but there are far worse people who are doing more damages than just one political/social position as the man is doing. It's a harmless expression, and just
ignore the music and the video is enough, even though the video was well made and the song has its minor appeal, the sound at least if the wording is just repetitive.
Well, you be the judge. 8/10.
