Those who know me l know that, about 99% of the time, I fucking hate remakes - but this rule applies mainly to film. However, the world of music shat an unholy ass-log of a remake after this year's Grammy Awards, apparently. Let it never be said that some dead horses are above a good beating - in the absence of relevance and/or popularity over the last 20+ years, Lionel Ritchie and Quincy Jones have gone back to the "We Are the World" well. Lionel's always been a little Aqua Velva for my taste - yes, even with the Commodores - but FUCK YOU, QUINCY JONES!!!
It's strange. When that song came out, I was mortally afraid of waking up to "Uncle Ronnie" on the television (my nightlight of choice for over two decades now!) telling me that he'd finally gone cuckoo-go-nuts and pushed the ol' button. Never did I imagine that, 25 years later, these walking, talking, singing wastes of air and food could, let alone would, release the same fucking song, with new "talent."
But let's back up a second. Back to the beginning. WHAT DO YOU SAY, JULIE ANDREWS???
"A very good place to start!"
I agree.
It's weird to think that many of my friends were toddlers when We Are The World came out. I can only imagine, in a pre-Radio Disney world, they were repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with that along with "Sing A Song" from Sesame Street. But I digress...
I held m' tongue in '84. I'll cop to enjoying the role of devil's advocate, even to the point of saying shit for saying shit's sake, but I'd consider myself to be a bit of a dick or a jerk (with a sweet, gooey center) - I'm no fucking asshole. There's a difference, believe me. Shitting on We Are The World at the time would have been like driving a monster truck through a South African shanty town. And as entertaining as that would be, [Believe me - I've tried!] it's just something you don't do. It's, mean. Goddamned mean.
But Quincy and Lionel opened up the door and invited my ilk to this party. See, like Christian rock, We Are The World, as a song, and by extension, it's creators; participants; or even the tone-deaf masses that bought that tripe, believe(d) the material to be above reproach. So after 25 FUCKING years, I can say with a conscience cleaner than Taylor Swift's pussy that:
WE ARE THE WORLD SUCKED THEN AND IT SUCKS 25 TIMES WORSE FUCKING NOW!!! IT'S FUCKING GARBAGE!!! IT SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKED!!! IT SUPER-DUPER SUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH-UCKED!!!
But for those who don't remember the connection, it was a rip-off idea even then. Bob Geldof (for those not in the know, wiki "Boomtown Rats" and do your own heavy lifting) had, the prior holiday season, put together a charity single called "Do They Know It's Christmas." Far from a revelation, but I mention it as more of a just-in-case measure more than anything else.
The problem with Geldof's team was the line-up, I guess. I'm just old enough to vaguely recall when performers like Sting and U2 were considered "fringe." [Cough, cough!] Other than Phil Collins, as far as the American record-buying public was concerned, the line-up was practically unknown. Maybe a couple Brits with modest Top 40 success, but the US is the only civilized nation on the fucking planet that thinks of Madness as a one-hit wonder.
Frankly, though I'm an admitted cynic, I don't really think that, as a project, WATW was really born of Yankee oneupsmanship. I truly believe it was a spur of the moment riff on something that existed. As a legend of jazz, Quincy Jones' life's blood is based on a lot of that kind of thing. And Geldof wrote a pretty goddam solid song, and I'm certain it was on the radar of the average American musician, if no one else. They weren't ripping off anything so much as - sad as it is to say - "Do They Know It's Christmas?" didn't do so hot.
OK - here's where I'll let the abject, hardline cynic jump out for a second: it's because the record-buying public in middle America - the easily led sheep that were conned into writing their congressfolk about dirty fucking lyrics were fucking...
Where was I?
Oh yeah! We Are The World was fucking terrible, and any friend of mine who bought that abomination at the time with their own money hasn't admitted to it to this day - and at this point, I wouldn't fucking want them to. Shit, I don't know many people who owned much, if any, music by anybody involved. Ok, Maybe Dan Aykroyd (yup, he sung on that shitpile) - a lot of us had Briefcase Full of Blues.
If anything, most of our folks had it, and (pardon the blanket statement) the vast majority of the Baby Boomers thought the band-aid was the panacea. I suppose Mtv had a hand in it with a constant rotation of that video. [Oooooooh! Huey Lewis!] After it fell off the charts, problem solved. Right? They had to move on to tackling the AIDS epidemic by purchasing That's What Friends Are For, goddammitt!
"Hear that? That's Africa!" they'd say, wiping a faux-Native American tear from their world weary eyes. After all, a lot of them saw footage of Vietnam and Kent State on TV dammitt!!! These were stalwart, can-do, people who...
But it was forgetable; it did fall off the charts; and I can only think of one time in the past 25 or so years since it became the footnote it should be that I've even thought about it. In college, my roommate was dating a semester-abroad student from Japan. The night before they had to vacate the dorms and go home, there was a party at the on-campus bar. We got to this party just in time for the last two tunes, one of which...
"There comes a time... When we heed a certain call... When the world must..."
Everybody slow dance! Confession: I wasn't thinking of Africa - Fuck Africa, motherfucker! My mind was squarely in Japan! I think her name was Momoko. Really nice girl. Good kisser. I smirked, but didn't laugh. It seemed to have some significance to the room [We really are the world, man!] and raining on someone's parade is a lot different than instigating debate.
And for well over a decade, I didn't give it another thought. Technically, the notion of a remake shouldn't really bug me, especially considering it was a fart in the wind, and it's bound to linger as long as it did the last time - after all, Celine Dion and The Jonas Brothers are involved.
I guess the main question here is why? USA for Haiti?
We have a rule in my writers' round table: you can't shit on something without being able to provide a solution. So here goes. How could Jones and Ritchie have done another charity single, and come out of it with clean souls? Three simple words. Zombie. Michael. Jackson.
Actually, two. New song. And I don't fucking mean doing the same old shit; adding some rap (which does anybody fucking recall that rap was maligned by many in the music industry - including Quincy Jones - when the original came out); and merely creating a version 2.0 with new, even more useless musical humps.
Imagine, for a moment, that instead of:
"Well, it was 25 years ago that we did it. So we thought we do it again."
[And fuck you twice sideways for saying that, Q!]
He said:
"Well, I wanted to do something to help Haiti, but I'm just an entertainer. I'm not an architect, or engineer or anything else that might be useful. But then, I remembered that I was able to do something to help Africa by donating my time and talent to create a single that made millions for the cause. It's an even more unique opportunity in that this year is the 25th anniversary of We Are The World. So I called Lionel, and the rest, as they say, is history. One more thing: please don't call this assemblage of talent USA for Haiti. It cheapens what we did for Africa."
But we don't live in that world, do we? We applaud the unoriginal - just like we applaud for runners-up in the Special Olympics.
