The Justice Collective - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

December 23, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

The Justice Collective is a group of celebrities and artists who have collaborated to create a charity single for the Hillsborough disaster, this has a similar link with Band Aid. The Justice Collective vocalists consists of Andy Brown, Gerry Marsden, Paul Heaton, Glenn Tilbrook, John Power, Robbie Williams, Melanie C, Rebecca Ferguson, Holly Johnson, Beverley Knight, Paloma Faith, Eliza Doolittle, Dave McCabe, Peter Hooton, Ren Harvieu, Jon McClure, Paul McCartney, Shane MacGowan, Bobby Elliott, Tony Hicks, Hollie Cook, Ian Prowse, Alan Hansen, Kenny Dalglish, John Bishop, Steve Rotheram, Peter Reid, Neil Fitzmaurice and LIPA Gospel Choir. Quite a collection of artists and celebrities. This will be the only single from The Justice Collective.

The song is a cover version of The Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother", two of which sung part of the song in The Justice Collective's version. It was written by Bob Russell and Bobby Scott. This song definitely does remind me of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?". And guess what? The videos are quite similar too.

This music video isn't even a performance piece. It is a studio piece, with an extra scene at the end. And yes I do like seeing the artists and celebrities singing the song, but it is missing something to draw me in, the only shocking thing I see in this is the other celebrities that could sing, such as John Bishop, who knew...?

The ending scene is small but definitely significant. The whole idea is amazing, but it still fails to do anything but perk the video up a bit. There were 96 people who died thanks to the Hillsborough Disaster, and that is why the children have the numbers nine and six on the back of their football shirts.

What is missing from this video is images or footage from the Hillsborough Disaster. We've all seen the few images available, but why were they not in the music video? If you had just flipped this over onto the music channels you would have no idea what it is for or who it is for, and this is what has made my decision on the video rating.

Overall the song is great and of course it would get to number one, that was obvious. And if I were reviewing the song it would get full stars. However the video is what is important to me on this blog, and it is just a studio performance piece. No link with the song or the reason they're singing the song (except at the end), leaving me on having to give this rating.