Band Aid 30: Is It OK to Hate a Charity Single?
I never thought that a song would make me nostalgic for Band Aid 20, never thought that I’d miss the often unintentionally surreal pairings of Dizzee Rascal rapping matched with a Darkness guitar solo, or the slick vocal talents of a peak-period Sugababes matched with whatever it is we liked about Busted in 2004. Band Aid 20 may have given us the beige presence of Dido and Joss Stone, but Band Aid 30 is the bland leading the bland, a ‘Now That’s What I Call Underwhelming!’ compilation of everything that makes you despair for the current music climate.
As a music critic, there is so much on the new Do They Know It’s Christmas? that I would tear to shreds if confronted with it in any other song. It’s the smug and self-satisfied sound of the biggest acts of today phoning it in to gain philanthropy points, performing a song that even with new deracist-ifying lyrics is still an incredibly patronising look at an entire continent. When Bono sings ‘well tonight we’re reaching out and touching you’ (presumably by downloading his touch onto our computers without us asking for it), it’s all I can do to think ‘nah cheers I’m alright thanks, Bono’.
And yet, the fact is that this single will do far more to tackle the horrors of the ebola epidemic than a whole legion of snarky pop culture critics like myself rolling their eyes at every close-up of a member of One Direction looking serious and thoughtful. Should there be special rules for charity pop singles, a promise from music critics to allow them pass joke-free while they raise their many millions for worthy charities across the world and helping some of the world’s most inflicted people?
In fact, am I expecting too much of the entire format? After all, even two of the world’s most talented and beloved artists managed to create the abomination that is Dancing in the Street when they teamed up for the first Live Aid.
And does it even matter how good the track is? I would argue that yes it does, and that Geldof’s choice of a dull lineup calculated to bring together the largest fan base possible (after all, why else feature three non-singing so-called ‘YouTube Superstars’ unless for calculated cash-in reasons…) actually damages this song’s revenue-generating potential. After all, why not attract both the One Directioners and actual music fans and make double the money?
Consider, for example, the BBC’s charity single cover of Perfect Day in 1997, or it’s follow-up this year, God Only Knows. The former features David Bowie, Lou Reed, Boyzone, Tom Jones, Lesley Garret, Pavarotti, Dr John, Shane MacGowan, Laurie Anderson, Emmylou Harris and many more in a song so completely strange and ill-advised that it actually is sort of incredible in a bizarrely terrible sort of way.
Or listen to the War Child or Red Hot series of albums, which take the biggest and most acclaimed artists or their day and are at the very least interesting. Listen to songs like Radiohead classic Lucky (featured on the War Child ‘Help!’ album before featuring on OK Computer), the Scissor Sisters doing Roxy Music’s Do the Strand (from 2009’s ‘War Child: Heroes’) or Hot Chip’s cover of Go Bang on this year’s Red Hot and Arthur Russell and hear songs that make paying for a charity single seem like a welcome trade off rather than a grim necessity.
So ultimately, what I’m saying is please please donate to the fight against ebola but then buy Portishead’s Mourning Air from the first War Child album. That way you can give to charity AND be musically rewarded for it.
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