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Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Hit Parade: The Charity Megasingle Edition
01:06:16
In the mid-1980s, big, loud, multicelebrity pop songs were briefly all over the charts and the radio. How’d that happen?
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- [00:00]
Chris Melanfoy
You're listening ad free on Amazon Music. Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop chart history from Slate and panoply about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song number one series on today's show 32 years ago, a plethora of music stars put on the largest concert event in history in two cities on a single day, July 13, 1985. The event was called Live Aid and the benefit for Ethiopian famine relief was watched by billions around the world. Billed as a global jukebox, Live aid featured some 70 music superstars at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. A few of the day's performances are now considered immortal, such as those by Queen U2, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. But each of the two Live Aid concerts ended not with a galvanizing rock band, but with a shambling sing along. London's concert closed this way with a Christmas song in July, And the Philadelphia Live Aid show ended this way.
- [01:54]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
We are the children, we are the ones that make them riot.
- [02:09]
Chris Melanfoy
It's not unusual to close a multi artist concert, particularly a benefit show, with a communal sing along. But what made these two songs unusual was they were conceived and recorded from the start for big group sing alongs. Even stranger, both were enormous hits just months before the concert. Indeed, they were the spark that ignited Live Aid in the first place. The singles Do They Know It's Christmas by UK supergroup Band Aid and We Are the World by USA for Africa topped the charts in their respective countries and still rank among the best selling singles of all time. Do they Know It's Christmas and We Are the World would be the first and the last massed celebrity charity mega singles to to do as well as they did. They spawned roughly a dozen other celebrity mega singles, from the high minded to the ill defined and even intentionally vague. With hindsight then, it's fair to ask not why no other singles did as well as these two songs, but why these two did so well in the first place here in America. We Are the World wasn't just a best selling single, it dominated the radio too. This pervasive airplay helped make the USA for Africa song a national event and pushed it to the top of Billboard's Hot 100 chart in under a month in the spring of 1985. If you flipped on the radio in most of the country, there was a good chance you'd hear big stars belting their lungs out. We Are the World is a series of Vocal explosions. All of your favorite singers taking their turn as our momentary American Idol. And if that wasn't enough, the song claims it will save the world. It is all good intentions and power, kitsch and infectiousness and schmaltz. Today on Hit Parade, we'll consider the unusual set of circumstances that made it possible for a seven minute shouty, schlocky but stellar single to do what no other mass charity single has done or since. And that's where your Hit Parade marches today. The week ending April 13, 1985, when We Are the World by USA for Africa began a four week run at the summit of the Hot 100. The statistics for We Are the World in 1985 alone were staggering. It was the first single in US history to be certified multi platinum for sales of 4 million globally. Total sales for World are estimated at more than 20 million. An accompanying album, also called We Are the World topped Billboard's album chart and went triple platinum. And the following year at the 1986 Grammys, we are the World won Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
- [05:19]
Lionel Richie
First, I'd like to thank God. And I like to say thank you for choosing Lionel and myself to write We Are the World. I thank Quincy Jones and was the greatest producer to me. And I also like to say when you leave here, remember the children.
- [05:49]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Thank you.
- [05:53]
Chris Melanfoy
Speaking of awards and big multi artist concerts, to understand how we arrived at this Grammy moment, let's go back about a dozen years to the early 70s and let's talk about a Grammy winning album whose opening track sounded like this. That's sitar master Ravi Shankar and sarod player Ali Akbar Khan with the first music you hear on the live triple album the Concert for Bangladesh. And like USA for Africa, this album was billed to a one time only group name George Harrison and Friends. Released in late 1971, the album captured an all star concert which was conceived to benefit the starving people of the former East Pakistan and was mounted by a former Beatle. On our last episode of Hit Parade about Elton John and George Michael, we discuss the concept of an artist's imperial period, that peak career moment when he can pull off virtually anything and see it embraced by the public. Say this for George Harrison. He used his imperial moment well and he used it to do good. For a brief period just after the spring 1970 breakup of the Beatles, Harrison was momentarily the most popular former Beatle. Within the first year of the Fab Four split, his triple LP set All Things Must Pass was a chart topper in both the US and UK outselling his former bandmate Paul McCartney's solo debut. McCartney, as well as John Lennon's Plastic Ono band. And Harrison scored the first number one single by any ex Beatle, reaching the top of the chart in America, England and more than a dozen countries around the world with the timeless and as it turns out, blatant ripoff of an earlier chiffon's hit, My Sweet Lord.
- [08:12]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Really want to show you love that it won't take long.
- [08:20]
Chris Melanfoy
My Sweet Lord hit the top of the charts at the start of 1971, kicking off arguably the biggest year of George Harrison's career. That August, he used his clout to organize the Concert for Bangladesh as a live show at New York's Madison Square Garden. Harrison rounded up a half dozen other superstars in addition to Shankar and Khan. Performers included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and Harrison's old bandmate Ringo Starr, as well as star players from such bands as Badfinger and Delaney and Bonnie. It was the first large scale benefit concert of its kind, essentially inventing the form nearly a decade and a half before Live A. For a year and a half after the concert itself, its offshoot projects would continue generating funds for the cause of Bangladeshi refugees, raising a quarter million dollars in the first year and ultimately some 12 million. These offshoots included a documentary film that was a solid box Office hit in 1972 and a triple album that hit number two on the Billboard album chart and went on to win Album of the year at the 1973 Grammys. Ringo Starr accepted the award. On behalf of Harrison and friends, I'd.
- [09:59]
Ringo Starr
Just like to say that I'm picking this up on behalf of everyone who was at the concert and everyone who put in the time, especially George Harrison, Phil Spector, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Ravi Shanker, Klaus Warman, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Bad Finger, and for Apple. For getting it together, what a plug. All the best.
- [10:16]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Thank you.
- [10:18]
Chris Melanfoy
As Starr implies in his speech, just issuing the live album had proven a challenge. The release pitted several record labels against each other to clear the rights for their performers to appear on the set. And any way you sliced it, the Concert for Bangladesh was an odd album to win the top Grammy, especially in the 1970s, the premier decade for consensus monocultural Grammy wins. From 1970 to 1979, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences picks for Album of the Year were almost entirely undeniable pop blockbusters. This was the decade when three classic Stevie Wonder albums took home the big inner visions, fulfilling this first finale and songs in the Key of Life. Paul Simon took it twice, once with Art Garfunkel for their final album Bridge Over Troubled Water, and once for Simon's solo smash Still Crazy after all these Years, And the award went to such mega blockbusters as Carole King's Tapestry, Fleetwood Mac's Rumors, Billy Joel's 52nd street and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. All nine of these other winning albums were million or multi million sellers. Eight of the nine topped the Billboard album chart and all spawned enormous hit singles. Concert for Bangladesh was the outlier of the bunch. It was a modest seller for a 70s Grammy winner. The set spent about nine months on the Billboard album chart, a very respectable stay, but the shortest of any of its 70s prize winning peers. By Grammy night in 1973, Bangladesh had already been off the charts for months. The album also lacked big radio hits, even on the album oriented rock format. Before the album's release, Harrison did score a minor hit single called Bangladesh, but it was a studio recording, not taken from the concert LP Bangladesh. Though it remains a respected album, Concert for Bangladesh was never certified platinum and to this day it's a modest seller even after a 2005 reissue on compact disc. Nielsen reports its sales at just 163,000 copies in the Soundscan era. So why did this unusual album win the big prize? Obviously there is the music from Billy Preston's that's the Way God Planned It.
- [13:53]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Why can't we be humble like the.
- [13:57]
Chris Melanfoy
Good Lord said to Leon Russell's lively medley of Jumpin, Jack Flash and Youngblood.
- [14:07]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Just sometimes you just don't treat me right and I woke up this morning and I looked her in the eye and she said sweet daddy, you got what I want but you ain't giving.
- [14:16]
Chris Melanfoy
It to me to an entire set by Bob Dylan, whose live appearance was his first in five years. As good as these performances were, they don't explain Bangladesh's Grammy win. Other even more famous All Star concerts, such as the Band's the Last Waltz, didn't take home Grammys. Of course, nothing galvanizes the public like a former Beatle. Then again, Paul McCartney never won the big Grammy with or without Wings, and John Lennon only won it after he died. Boiling away all of these possible rationales, we must conclude that the Recording Academy was rewarding two Harrison's good intentions and his cavalcade of stars. What made the Concert for Bangladesh vital was the template it created for the All Star charity recording project. Harrison would later advise Band Aid co founders Bob Geldoff and Midge Urban to find a good accountant after experiencing difficulty delivering the Bangladesh project's proceeds to its intended beneficiaries. But at the time, the album made the public feel good, consumers felt good for buying it, Grammy voters for voting for it. And it offered notoriety on Steroids, a musical project nominally about celebrity sacrifice but ultimately about celebrity aggregation.
- [16:02]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Like to bring on a friend of us all, Mr. Bob Dylan.
- [16:10]
Chris Melanfoy
Who knows how much bigger Harrison's project might have been if he'd rounded up his headliners for a big singalong? The concert did feature a pileup of lead guitarists, but as prescient as it was, Bangladesh only hints at the form charity mega events would ultimately take, so we have to look to other forerunners. I mentioned the Last Waltz a moment ago. That's the farewell concert by Canadian American roots rock group the Band. Recorded live on Thanksgiving Day 1976 at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom and filmed for a documentary by director Martin Scorsese.
- [17:07]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
The.
- [17:07]
Chris Melanfoy
Last Waltz was not a charity event, but it did feature more than a dozen guest superstars, from Van Morrison to the Staple Singers to Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to, once again, Bob Dylan. And unlike George Harrison's concert for Bangladesh, the Last Waltz climaxes with an all star sing along, a rendition of Dylan's I Shall Be Released. As they gather around the microphones, the sheepish smiles on the faces of of the coke addled post hippie rock stars begin to hint at the final form. But in addition to lacking a charitable cause, the Last Waltz notwithstanding, the presence of Neil diamond also lacks the kitsch element. For that you have to jump ahead another five years to the bizarre TV special Get High on Yourself. It was the brainchild of Robert Evans, the legendary Hollywood movie producer who produced Love Story and the Godfather and was immortalized in the 2002 biographical documentary the Kid Stays in the Picture. In 1981, Evans had been busted for purchasing $19,000 of cocaine and was ordered by a court to produce a public service TV special as community service. So Evans rounded up more than 50 of his famous pals, from Bob Hope to Andy Gibb to Happy Days, Henry Winkler and Scott Baio, to record an anti drug song. A cloying, rancid and oddly infectious ditty written expressly for tv. Being yourself, Being yourself, Being yourself get high on Yourself, which one blog aptly calls an anti drug celebrity clusterfuck, was not actually a single event, but a series of video bumpers NBC ran between its programs for a week in 1981. Very few of the participants were singers. Most were chosen for their celebrity profile and their ability to look winsome bopping along next to a children's chorus. But the ghastly spectacle will look familiar to anyone who recalls the more renowned charity singles later in the 1980s, a gaggle of famous people behind a handful of microphones harmonizing for the cameras. Here on Get High On Yourself, the celebrity mega event begins to take a veneer of social justice, a dose of camp, a vibe of aw shucks, let's put on a show. A check your egos at the door spirit that nonetheless boosts the participants star profiles and an emphasis on rewatchability. There is no evidence Bob Geldof ever saw the cheesy and very American Get High On Yourself. Geldof was a sardonic Irishman who fronted the Boomtown Rats, a post punk group that in the late 70s and early 80s scored a string of UK top 40 hits, including their grandiose chart topper about a mass shooting I don't like.
- [20:50]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays I wanna shoot. The whole day down.
- [21:11]
Chris Melanfoy
In the fall of 1984, Geldof was moved by a BBC TV report on the devastating famine in Ethiopia. In just over a week, Geldof and his girlfriend Paula Yates had reached out to another UK pop star, Midge Ur of the band Ultravox, famed for the stately British smash Vienna. Together, Geldof and Ur decided to mount a single in time for the holiday season of 1984 to raise money for famine relief. And they determined that the best way to do so was not to record a pre existing Christmas Carol, which might require royalty payments, but to write one of their own. So they adapted a song Geldof had been working on for the Boomtown Rats, originally called It's My World. Adding a Christmassy melody Ur came up with, they transformed it into a song titled Do They Know It's Christmas? The record came together rapidly as Geldof and Ur prepared for a recording date in late November. Starting with the Police's Sting and Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, Geldof began phoning up all the leading British pop stars of the day, including Culture Club's Boy George, Wham's George Michael and U2's Bono. All of these singers would have solo showcases on the final recording of Do They Know It's Christmas. Time? Indeed, this is what's most interesting about the composition and ultimate arrangement of Do They Know It's Christmas? Geldof and Ur wrote it to provide the maximum sonic wallop. If you recall the song, your first memory is likely of its closing refrain, the mass choir of moose and mascara pop stars making a joyful noise in a big group sing along. But the truly innovative, diabolical genius of the song is actually in its first half, which is packed with solos. There is no real chorus for more than 24 bars, as a procession of pop stars take a line or two each.
- [24:16]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Fun There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of tread and fear.
- [24:28]
Chris Melanfoy
In the song's first two minutes, 11 pop deities take a verse either solo or in pairs, including Sting, who shares his verses with Laban and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley. Plus there are drum kit close ups of Phil Collins, who gets a cymbal crash entrance of his own. The verses change cadence enough times that it's actually difficult to picture one person singing all of the parts. Finally, after almost two full minutes have elapsed, Blue Eyed soul singer Paul Young deploys its refrain more than halfway through the song's running time.
- [25:08]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Do they know it's Christmas time?
- [25:16]
Chris Melanfoy
That refrain is only sung twice on the whole track, a pair of shoals abutting a tiny bridge. Here's to you, here's to them before the final sing along. The song, in short, is virtually all solo or mantra, like a modern skyscraper designed to provide as many windows as possible so every executive in the company can boast of a corner office. Do they Know It's Christmas? Was built to showcase. Of course, this was the point Geldof had absorbed the idea that a mass display of pop stars could draw attention to a cause emphasis on the word display. What makes 1984 the moment when the charity mega single achieves its final form was the fact that the music video era was in full flower. The only thing Concert for Bangladesh, the Last Waltz and Get High On Yourself had in common was they were all captured on camera on that chilly November day in West London. When Geldof's army of pop stars all arrived at the Sarm west studios in Notting Hill, they were greeted by cameras both outside the building and inside the studio itself. When the single was issued in early December, barely a week after its recording, its music video and a making of video were issued virtually simultaneously, not unlike Michael Jackson's Thriller video the year before. All the elements were in place, not just the round robin sing along. Not just the humanitarianism, but a commonly available visual medium that packaged a recording as a rewatchable event. Do they Know It's Christmas? Sold more than 3 million copies in the UK alone and topped their chart for five weeks. The Band Aid single remains one of the two best selling singles in UK chart history, topped only by Elton John's Princess Diana tribute Candle in the wind 1997 in America, while not nearly as big a hit on our Hot 100, Do They Know It's Christmas? Managed to nearly equal its UK sales, racking up 2.5 million stateside by 1985. Of course, we Americans like a challenge. No country out spectacles us and gets away with it. Ken Cragan, the manager and fundraiser who spearheaded what became USA for Africa with music legend and longtime activist Harry Belafonte, openly admitted that Band Aid inspired America's own multi superstar charity single. On the night of January 28, 1985, literally hours after the end of the televised American Music Awards which had gathered dozens of music superstars to LA, Craigan, Belafonte and producer Quincy Jones gathered some 50 recording artists to A and M studios in Hollywood. In a line that's now become a cliche, Quincy Jones instructed the stars to please check your egos at the door. Whether they were music legends like Ray Charles or Waylon Jennings, relative newcomers like Sheila E. Or moonlighting actors like Dan Aykroyd, We Are the World was co written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, a pair of Motown nurtured pop gods who were each at the apex of their respective imperial periods. Jackson had just come off of Thriller, the top selling album of all time and the top concert tour of 1984, the Jackson's Victory Tour. And Richie was coming off the octuple platinum Can't Slow down, which would go on to win album of the Year at the Grammys in early 1985. If Bob Geldof and Mid Year had just penned A Christmas Carol, Jackson and Richie wanted to create an anthem. Jackson had dabbled in anthems with his brothers, co writing the minor hit can youn feel it in 1981.
- [29:50]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Can you feel it? Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
- [29:58]
Chris Melanfoy
Lionel Richie had some experience with writing grandiose hits too. Around the same time, Lionel had written a duet for himself and fellow Motown star Diana Ross that topped the charts for three months in 1981. The ostentatious power ballad Endless Love.
- [30:19]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
You My love, My love, My love, My endless love.
- [30:29]
Chris Melanfoy
For their 1985 anthem. Jackson and Richie drew elements of these prior lavish hits while also adapting the Band Aid template not to the letter. One key structural difference between We Are the World and its British forefather was Jackson and Richie wrote A film full traditional chorus which is deployed by Jackson and Diana Ross. When the song is just over a minute into its running time. This roots We Are the World in something closer to an American tradition, as that chorus recurs later in the song as a gospel style refrain. But even with this more distinct chorus, the overarching band aid structure remains unaltered. Series of solos in front, choir of angels in back. In fact, Team USA basically just supersized the Geldof template. The running time nearly doubles from Christmases under 4 minutes to Worlds 7 minutes and 5 seconds. And the team of about a dozen British soloists on Christmas swells to 19American soloists in the first three minutes of We Are the World. Many of the singers, very much in an American soul tradition, take great liberties with the melody. These include such strange pairings as a sultry Dionne Warwick followed by a loping.
- [32:36]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Willie Nelson Send them your heart so they know that someone else and their lives will be stronger and free.
- [32:50]
Chris Melanfoy
A one time only trio of male soloists, Kenny Loggins, Journey's Steve Perry and Daryl Hall.
- [32:57]
Lionel Richie
We all want to make a brighter day so let's not give in me.
- [33:14]
Chris Melanfoy
And just before the big chorus, a star turn by the second youngest soloist in the room after Michael Jackson. An explosive interpretation on the bridge from Ms. Cyndi Lauper. This series of solos at the front are augmented by five bonus solos later in the song by Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, James Ingram, Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. The last two in a rousing pas de deux. One of the single's best moments. This skyscraper comes not only with corner offices but extra penthouses. For more than three decades. Do they Know It's Christmas and We Are the World World have provoked reams of debate over which is the better cultural artifact or for you cynics and critics out there, which is worse, More self serving, more tone deaf, more vapid. Many of my fellow music critics have taken sides in the Christmas versus World Wars. In the spring of 1985, Dean of American rock critics Bob Cristgau wrote, quote, by any reasonably objective critical standard, USA For Africa's We Are the World is a good, maybe great record. Where Band Aid's do they Know It's Christmas? Was a bad or terrible one. Meanwhile, on his blog about the history of the charts, British pop critic Tom Ewing claims Band Aid's hit quote has stuck it out better than I thought it would, mostly because it's become a record about Christmas, not a record about tragedy. While of USA for Africa, Ewing writes, quote, michael Jackson and Lionel Richie play things a lot safer it was so long and cumbersome. But I'm not interested in taking sides in a parochial transatlantic war or exploring the superiority of one of these records over the other. Mostly, I'm interested in the radio. Both Christmas and World got significant traction on the airwaves. They had notoriety and genuine charitable impact in their favor. But topicality alone doesn't make a song a hit. To get on the radio you need the musical equivalent of the movie trailer moment, and both Christmas and World have those in spades. In the Band Aid single, there are several outsize moments, not least when U2's Bono has his Star Is Born solo the now infamous lyric that a cynical Bob Geldof insisted the wary U2 frontman deliver as written. That moment may have bothered some listeners, but there are other memorable fireworks, such as a note perfect George Michael nailing his bars, or the louche Simon Le Bon slithering through his on We Are the World. In addition to that beloved Cyndi Lauper star turn, there's the moment Michael Jackson ramps up his power bridge, Or the moment Bob Dylan does his hilarious Bob Dylan impression. As I said earlier, these songs were quite literally conceived, structured to provide such shows, showcases the stars delivered, the singles sold. The DJs followed suit, especially in America. One major difference between the Billboard Hot 100 and the British charts is that airplay is a factor on our hit parade. But event records like these are ungainly on the airwaves. And yet We Are the World was an enormous power rotated radio smash. Given the single's seven minute running time, you might suspect that We Are the World would be a huge sales hit, but only a modest radio hit. This is often the pattern with charity records, but that wasn't the case with We Are the world in 1985. The week it began its four week run atop the Hot 100, it was both the top seller and the most reported airplay record. This was considerably better than the Band Aid single did in America. At the time, its airplay was seasonally limited. Rush released in December 84, just a couple of weeks before the holidays Do They Know It's Christmas? Had little time to amass U.S. airplay. If Bob Geldof had somehow managed to complete Do They Know It's Christmas? One month earlier, catching America's Thanksgiving holiday. It's easy to imagine it reaching the US top five, but the song peaked on the Hot 100 in mid January 1985 here in the United States.
- [39:05]
Casey Kasem
So far the record has sold more than a million copies, and it's still selling as it climbs two notches this week to number 13. As the Christmas spirit goes on, here's Band Aid and Do they know it's Christmas?
- [39:19]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
It's Christmas time.
- [39:22]
Chris Melanfoy
It's no surprise Christmas was off the Hot 100 in just two months, but even We Are the World had a fairly short shelf life. It was certified Quadruple Platinum in April 1985, but it was largely off the radio by June. In fact, the day of live aid in July 1985, world was down to number 92 on the hot 100, two weeks away from falling off altogether. Still, even if they weren't long lasting radio hits, Band Aid and USA for Africa were hugely influential. They immediately spawned other imitators. One of those imitators was even in record shops simultaneously with We Are the World, Canada's famine relief offering Tears Are Not Enough. Recorded in Toronto just weeks after world by a 50 Canuck supergroup dubbed Northern Lights. Co written and arranged by Canadian super producer David Foster and rock star Bryan Adams, tears Are Not Enough was classic Canada. The melody is remarkably sturdy and the production is extra cheesy. If Dylan and Springsteen seemed like improbable charity singers with USA for Africa, the roster of Northern Lights offered even greater surprises. Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Russia's Geddy Lee all took a verse.
- [41:07]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
You.
- [41:13]
Chris Melanfoy
Tears Are Not Enough did not chart in America. Although it was an album cut on the We Are the World album, of course, it did top the charts in its home country. In fact, in typical Canadian nice to everybody fashion, Canada was the one country where all three of the national pride charity singles Do They Know? It's Christmas, We Are the World and Tears Are Not Enough hit number one. The Canadians were smart to drop their record alongside USA For Africa's when global attention for the Ethiopian famine was at its peak, Hearing Aid was not so lucky. This hard rock mega group was mounted out of both compassion and resentment after the members of the metal band Dio noted that both Band Aid and USA for Africa pointedly excluded metal axe. Redressing that snobbery, they gathered an army of headbangers in May 1985 to record the single Stars, which featured eight solo vocalists and nine solo guitarists. The chorus on Stars featured More than 40 hard rock screamers, including members of Quiet Riot, Judas Priest Daken and Queens Reich, plus two members of Neville Paradis, Spinal Tap, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer dressed up as their metalhead characters David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls. Unfortunately, Starz went unreleased for more than half a year amid contractual disputes among the rockers. Respective labels when it was finally issued in early 1986, it missed the Hot 100 entirely and managed only a number 39 peak on Billboard's album rock chart. The three year famine in Ethiopia had by then entered a more complex, less headline friendly period, demanding political and military intervention more than direct aid. But that's around the time the massively multiplayer mid-80s Goodwill single morphed beyond North African famine to embrace an array of other causes. Often simple awareness rather than feeding the world was the only goal. This second wave kicked off auspiciously toward the end of 1985 with the most critically acclaimed multi artist charity record, Little Stevens. Artists United Against Apartheid was not only a symbolic protest against South African ethnic separatism. On a narrower scale, it drew a line in the sand against Western artists performing in Sun City, a segregated resort in Baputiswana. Sun City, the song drew the most intriguing and diverse array of music stars, rappers and punks and jazz greats from Run DMC to Ruben Blades, Lou Reed to Miles Davis, Joey Ramone to Darlene Love, Pat Benatar to Bobby Womack. The lineup even included artists who had appeared on the first wave of charity singles and appeared to be having a better time on this one. Bruce Springsteen, hall and Oates and Bob Dylan, all fresh off USA for Africa and U2's Bono. A year past Band Aid looking to neutralize his infamous thank God It's Them star turn, Bono offered a more politically pointed, rageful solo showcase. Most most commemorations of Sun City imply that the project was a noble failure, since it only reached number 38 on the Hot 100. Like Band Aid, Sun City was a greater success on the sales side and was indeed ignored by most pop radio programmers. But that glass is more than half full. This crazily eclectic, catchy single scored strong MTV play, and unlike the Northern Lights or Hearing Aids singles, it was enough of a hit to be counted down by Casey Kasem.
- [46:09]
Casey Kasem
I'm Casey Kasem. Here's the hit record featuring 54 recording artists, including, and you'll hear them in order on the first verse, David Ruffin, Pat Benatar, Eddie Kendrick and Bruce Springsteen. They're saying apartheid in South Africa must go up a notch to number 38, Artists United Against Apartheid with Sun City.
- [46:34]
Chris Melanfoy
As Little Stephen would point out years later, the song succeeded in its fundamental mission, making it socially unacceptable for artists to perform in Sun City. At year's end, the song was hailed by critics and tastemakers as one of the best recordings of the year. It topped the 1985 Village Voice Paz and Jop Poll and the Sun City album made the polls top five. No other charity mega single for the balance of the 1980s equaled artist united against apartheid's combination of a decent commercial showing and a sense of mission. Some did respectably, but all lacked the standout moments of Band Aid and USA for Africa, the Bono, Cindy, Stevie and Bruce fireworks that might have made them stickier hits. In 1986 alone, charity mega singles were all over the map. In addition to the belatedly released Stars by Hearing Aid, the early part of the year saw the release of the King Dream Choruses. King Holiday it was the first year Martin Luther King Day was observed as a national holiday in America and King Holiday was an awareness building celebration. Produced and co written by rapper Curtis Blow, The King Dream Chorus featured a slew of R and B singers and hip hop stars from El debarge to New Edition to the Fat Boys. The song managed to reach number 30 on Billboard's Hot Black Singles chart, likely propelled by its star attraction, Whitney Houston, who wasn't yet popular enough in early 1985 to be considered for USA for Africa, but at the dawn of 1986 was the centerpiece of King Holiday.
- [48:39]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
We'll sing of a king and his words will lie all of Dr. King.
- [48:52]
Chris Melanfoy
On the schlockier side was Ken Cragen's follow up to USA for Africa. Cragan was the manager who helped bring together Harry Belafonte, Quincy Jones and the range of megastars who sang We Are the world. His 1986 project was a grand scale hunger and homelessness effort called Hands Across America. It arrived on a wave of hype centered around a nationwide human chain that despite best efforts, had large humanless gaps in the West. The titular single is utterly dreadful. Erzatz John Mellencamp Hack Americana Credited to the Voices of America. Several personalities such as Kenny Rogers and Don Johnson lip sync in the video, but no recognizable singer takes an interesting vocal line that might redeem the song. It managed a number 65 Hot 100 Peak. The charity mega single even went on to have an impact on rap's first golden age and its first coastal rivalry. New York rapper KRS One founded the Stop the Violence movement in 1987 after a young fan was killed at a show headlined by his crew Boogie Down Productions and Public enemy. In early 1989, KRS1's collective released its first all star single, Self Destruction. Featuring around a dozen east coast rappers from Heavy D to Flavor Flav. It reached number 30 on Hot Black Singles.
- [51:00]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Well today's topic, Self destruction. It really ain't the rap audience that's bugging.
- [51:06]
Chris Melanfoy
One year later, NWA's Dr. Dre produced his own anti violence record, the West Coast Rap All Stars. We're all in the Same Gang sporting an even larger array of luminaries including pop rappers like Hammer and early gangstas like Eazy.
- [51:24]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
E. Stop Killing My Brother because we're all from the same gang.
- [51:35]
Chris Melanfoy
In this east coast versus west coast competition, the Westerners were the winners. We're all in the Same Gang made the Black singles top 10 and scraped the pop top 40 higher on both charts than the Stop the Violence Movement single. But in a way, both were winners. Both Self Destruction and Same Gang were certified gold at a time when retailers were still underreporting rap sales to Billboard. Appropriately for two singles that are about preventing violence, the rivalry remained friendly. In fact, the most pointed head to head rivalry among Do Gooder singles occurred in 1991. In the run up to the first Persian Gulf War. Two groups of awareness builders rounded up dozens of superstars for a pair of competing singles, both commenting on President George H.W. bush's military campaign, but their allegiances were a bit muddy. Representing for the anti war corner were John Lennon's offspring, actual child Sean Ono Lennon and self styled child Lenny Kravitz with an all star version of Dad's anthem Give Peace a Chance. Co organize by Yoko Ono and credited to the Peace Choir. The new single Featured more than 40 eclectic acts from MC Hammer to Axl Rose to Peter Gabriel to Iggy pop to Michael McDonald. The recording also sported an all new set of verse lyrics, some fine singing and an almost unlistenable pileup of stitched together vocals.
- [53:36]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
Civil War Revolution Mama got no solution I was facing Vietnam we don't want to drop.
- [53:47]
Chris Melanfoy
Give Peace A chance 1991 was the logical end product of years of post Band Aid singles that loaded up on solo star turns. Practically every singer gets a single line, or even half a line. It would be nice to report that piece 91 has aged well, but Adam Ant's Jean overalls in the video say it all. And in the other corner was the pro troops, if not quite pro war. Voices that Care by a group also calling itself Voices that Care. Produced by David Foster, the man behind Canada's Northern Lights a half decade earlier, Voices that Care is the ultimate product of the early 90s. Featuring prominent Michael Bolton vocals and a Kenny G sax solo. Determined not to offend, Voices that Care featured more nonspecific singing luminaries than usual, and its politics were vague enough that famous lefties like Sally Field and Whoopi Goldberg could vocalize alongside conservatives like Wayne Gretzky without anyone harming their public profile. As for the rivalry between the songs, no one from the Peace Choir's Give Peace A Chance reappeared on Voices that Care other than a probably confused Little Richard who did both. The two singles debuted on the charts literally a week apart in March of 1991, which, considering Gulf War I hostilities ended in February 1991, made both singles even less eventful on the charts. Banal and vague won out over banal and groovy. The Peace Choir single petered out at number 54 and was off the Hot 100 in a month. Voices that Care came just one spot shy of the top 10, peaking at number 11, and it hung in just shy of four months and went gold. If Peace vs Voices proved anything, it was that at the dawn of the 1990s, the charity Mega single had gone from resilient fad to self perpetuating cliche. It was a fat enough comedic Target that a January 1992 Simpsons episode titled Radio Bart took dead aim. Sting cameoed alongside Krusty the Clown on the imagined Benefits single We're sending our love down the well There's a hole.
- [56:37]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
In my heart as deep as the well for that poor little boy who stuck halfway Though we can't get him.
- [56:44]
Chris Melanfoy
Out we'll do the next best thing and go on TV and sing, sing, sing.
- [56:52]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
And we're sending our love down.
- [56:56]
Chris Melanfoy
It was both a well executed parody. Crusty's yowling counterpoint vocals are a savage touch, but it was also a pointed critique. Simpsons showrunner Mike Reese later revealed in a DVD commentary that their parody was inspired not just by We Are the World, but more specifically by Voices that Care and the apparent meaninglessness of its pro troops. Late to the War Lyrics this Simpsons musical charity Parody premiered on TV the same week in 1992, Nirvana topped the Billboard album charts. Indeed, the decade of irony would not be kind to the earnest superstar mega single. The form essentially went into hibernation and near extinction for the rest of the decade. It only briefly re emerged in 2001 right around 911 in the form of a cover of Marvin Gaye's what's Going on? Produced by Germaine Dupre and executive produced by Bona.
- [58:22]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
That's right.
- [58:25]
Chris Melanfoy
Recorded before the 911 attacks and originally meant to benefit AIDS research, the single was later shared with the Red Cross in the wake of the attacks, boasting such megastars as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, NSync, Missy Elliott, Nas, Gwen Stefani and Jennifer Lopez. What's Going on barely scraped Billboard's top 30 and sold poorly. The shift in the song's beneficiary was telling. Now the actual mission of a charity record was less important than its very existence. Eight years later, when the original team behind We Are the World, Ken Cragan and Lionel Richie, decided to mount a new version of the single, they were motivated largely by the song's 25th anniversary. Only after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010 did the new version of We Are the World have a point. The new single was titled we are the world 25 for Haiti, and it led off with vocals by Justin Bieber and the Pussycat Doll's Nicole Scherzinger, as well as an awkward Will I Am rap break. The song made an explosive debut on the Hot 100, all the way up at number two, higher than the original We Are the world debuted in 1985. However, that debut was a bit of a mirage, fueled almost entirely by downloads. We Are the World 25 was the first major charity single of the itunes era, and with digital sales now incorporated into the Hot 100, the single's opening week was propelled by a quarter million in first week downloads. To the kind hearted and civic minded and probably an army of rabid beliebers, we are the world 25 for Haiti generated little radio airplay and the song was off the Hot 100 within a month. More than three decades after the original We Are the World, no single has matched its combination of zeitgeist and vocation, and none has matched Do They Know It's Christmas for sticky persistence, including the three remakes Bob Geldof later produced in future years, all of which briefly topped the British charts, but none of which is regularly played on the radio. In America. Do They Know It's Christmas took a back seat to We Are the World on the charts 32 years ago, but in the present day the two songs have reversed positions. Band Aid is now the perennial radio gold, according to Nielsen Radio. We Are the World does decently as an oldie Last year, terrestrial US radio played world nearly 400 times nationwide. But Do They Know It's Christmas? It was played a staggering 19,900 times in 2016 alone, and those nearly 20,000 plays are all concentrated into the last two months of the year. This is no surprise. For the last decade, Billboard has published a special holiday airplay chart, and Do They Know It's Christmas makes the list every year. Some years it even reaches Billboard's holiday top 10 alongside the likes of Jingle Bell Rock and Feliz Navidad. Will anyone in the modern era of streaming music and digital hits attempt anything on the scale of these two singles? Again, maybe not for charity. If the 2010 edition of We Are the World for Haiti is any indication, matching a moving cause to a moving song is difficult in our fractured media landscape. In 2017, the closest thing to a multi artist mega single on the radio is led not by Quincy Jones but by rap producer DJ Khaled, whose summer smash I'm the One credits no less than five himself, Chance the Rapper, Lil Wayne Quavo, and most prominently, our era's most ubiquitous hitmaker, Justin Bieber. In the 1980s, critics complained that the charity mega single was more about the Western recording artists committing their time and their pipes than it was about the beneficiaries of their good intentions. But on I'm the One, the song is literally about the singers. DJ Khaled's hit might as well be called I Am the World. As for We Are the World, with its modest perennial airplay, it is enjoyed today mostly by 1980s nostalgists and lovers of bygone pop culture. But it's also a rousing sing along. When the song closed Live Aid 32 years ago, the cameras in Philadelphia showed thousands of concertgoers at JFK Stadium singing along. These days, the only man regularly revisiting We Are the World in public is the man who co wrote it, Lionel Richie. When performing the song he co wrote with his dear departed friend Michael Jackson, Richie must sing the entire lead vocal by himself. Fortunately, he also gets some help from a few thousand friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Hit Parade. My producer is Chris Barube. The Executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Steve Lichta. Panoply's Chief Content Officer is Andy Bowers. Check out their entire roster of podcasts at Panoply fm. A Housekeeping Note we are taking the month of August off and coming back with more Hit Parade goodness in the fall. Thanks to the many of you who've told us via Twitter and email. You enjoy the show and you want to hear more. We plan to come back stronger after our late summer break. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the Hit Parade back your way. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melangelo.
- [65:29]
Singer/Performer (Various Artists)
So. It's true we make a better day. Just you and me. Good night everybody. God bless you. Sam.