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Has Bob Geldof missed a beat, nay a whole generation?
His recent announcement and press conference with Midge Ure (who?) indicating that they would re-make and re-release a song that defined a time raises not only awareness but also many questions and implications.
The Guardian contributor, Bid Adewumni, succinctly questions whether “the revival of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’…….is really the best way to help?”
Ebola is a menace and the three west African countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia) where the disease is wreaking havoc need financial help – the type that multiple sales of a £4 charity CD can bring.
“It has nothing to do with whether you like the record or not or whether you approve of the artists,” Geldof told BBC News, which is a novel way of selling a charity record.
“It’s simply a way of saying, this Christmas, yeah, let’s stop this here.”
At the launch event, (Geldof) said: “[Band Aid 30] is focused on a small part of Africa that potentially holds a vast danger to the world.”
Everything (he) is saying is completely true: the spread of Ebola is terrifying, it must be stopped as quickly as humanly possible, and we need to raise funds to combat it.
So why does Band Aid 30 feel so patronising and uncomfortable?
The #BANDAID30 media conference was clunky and awkward – two old pop stars trying to be relevant and altruistic. Indeed Geldof came off as cynical and brash in his criticism of the amounts of money pledged and allocated to the eradication of Ebola by some countries.
And as this BBC reporter indicates, the music and entertainment businesses have altered dramatically in 30 years. Read it here.
Perhaps a better question might be does Geldof, or do we, know the right way “of saying, this Christmas, yeah, let’s stop this here”?
