Petra
11-15-2004, 01:47 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4012619.stm
Sir Bob Geldof and producer Midge Ure were joined yesterday by about 40 leading names of the music scene for a fresh version of 1984's Do They Know it's Christmas?
The song will be titled Band Aid 20 to mark the 20th anniversary of the original version, which Geldof organised after watching news footage of the starving in Ethiopia.
Money raised by the new version will go towards drought relief in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Will you buy the Band Aid 20 single when it is released on 29 November? Is it worth doing it again? What will it achieve?
I put my two cents in, dunno if it'll get published, but my views are this:
I hope they do raise a great deal of money to help the people in Sudan, but I think it's wrong to use that song.
We live in a world that is fraught with religious extremism, rampant consumerism, and dirty business; so I think that 20 years on, the song choice is outdated and insensitive as Christmas can represent gluttony and consumerism in the wealthy west, and is exclusive in it’s spiritual message as it represents one single religion in a religiously divided world. That to me smacks of Christian evangelistic sanctimony. So, in this modern world of religious tension and extremism, I don't know how a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas?" will help as much as a more religiously neutral song, and I'm sure a noble philanthropist like Sir Bob Geldof would prefer to raise money for Sudanese drought relief through a song that is more inclusive than one with a particular (and what I see as rather condescending) religious bias.
Perhaps a more secular song could have been written for the cause - something along the lines of John Lennon's "Imagine", perhaps?
"Feed the World" was a good song, why not use that?
What do you think about this new Band Aid enterprise?
Sir Bob Geldof and producer Midge Ure were joined yesterday by about 40 leading names of the music scene for a fresh version of 1984's Do They Know it's Christmas?
The song will be titled Band Aid 20 to mark the 20th anniversary of the original version, which Geldof organised after watching news footage of the starving in Ethiopia.
Money raised by the new version will go towards drought relief in the Darfur region of Sudan.
Will you buy the Band Aid 20 single when it is released on 29 November? Is it worth doing it again? What will it achieve?
I put my two cents in, dunno if it'll get published, but my views are this:
I hope they do raise a great deal of money to help the people in Sudan, but I think it's wrong to use that song.
We live in a world that is fraught with religious extremism, rampant consumerism, and dirty business; so I think that 20 years on, the song choice is outdated and insensitive as Christmas can represent gluttony and consumerism in the wealthy west, and is exclusive in it’s spiritual message as it represents one single religion in a religiously divided world. That to me smacks of Christian evangelistic sanctimony. So, in this modern world of religious tension and extremism, I don't know how a song called "Do They Know It's Christmas?" will help as much as a more religiously neutral song, and I'm sure a noble philanthropist like Sir Bob Geldof would prefer to raise money for Sudanese drought relief through a song that is more inclusive than one with a particular (and what I see as rather condescending) religious bias.
Perhaps a more secular song could have been written for the cause - something along the lines of John Lennon's "Imagine", perhaps?
"Feed the World" was a good song, why not use that?
What do you think about this new Band Aid enterprise?