March 18th, 2008
1. Various Artists, "Voices That Care" (1991)
How many voices are necessary to prove that we really, really care about soldiers fighting overseas? Ten? Screw that. Twenty? Not even close. As "Voices That Care" shows, it takes at least 110 singers, actors, and athletes singing and swaying en masse to properly capture the appropriate level of caring. Recorded in 1991 to boost the morale of troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm, the single—along with its hilariously dated documentary video—proves that quantity always beats quality when it comes to schlocky, celebrity-choir-driven charity ballads. It starts out typically enough, with a cadre of then-A-list musicians—Bobby Brown, Celine Dion, Michael Freakin' Bolton—trading fist-pumping sentiments like "Lonely fear lights up the sky / can't help but wonder why you're so far away." But after an awkward rap breakdown from the Fresh Prince and a smooth sax line from Kenny G, the care-ball busts open, unleashing a flood of painfully earnest actors (Sally Field! Jean-Claude Van Damme!), comedians (Whoopi Goldberg! Jon Lovitz!), athletes (Michael Jordan! Wayne Gretzky!), and, um, other (Don King?) emoting their hearts out to the chorus, "Stand tall! Stand proud! / Voices that care are crying out loud." Only one thing could cap off such a tremendous, garish outpouring of support: Warren Wiebe, a nondescript session singer tapped by one of the songwriters to belt out the final lines, just before the surrounding celebrity army breaks into self-congratulatory applause.
2. Artists United Against Apartheid, "Sun City" (1985)
Multi-artist benefit songs are undignified and embarrassing by nature, but Steven Van Zandt made an almost†credible stab at†turning the genre against itself by using it to chastise his fellow entertainers for performing at a South African luxury resort. Van Zandt backed off a plan to name names—thereby letting the likes of Linda Ronstadt and Rod Stewart off the hook—but otherwise, "Sun City" offers a surprisingly cogent critique of the Reagan administration's tepid plan for dealing with apartheid. The single actually topped the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 1985, but that was more a political gesture—both a statement against apartheid and an appreciation of Van Zandt's attempts to fuse rap and rock. In retrospect, for all its good intentions and all-star cast—including Bruce Springsteen, Gil Scott-Heron, George Clinton, Bono, Bob Dylan, Afrika Bambaataa, Jackson Browne, Lou Reed, Joey Ramone, Ruben Blades, and Kurtis Blow—"Sun City" is leaden as a rap track and over-earnest as a rocker. It's the best of a bad lot, which isn't saying much.
3. Artists Against AIDS Worldwide, "What's Going On" (2001)
Remember the part in "What's Going On" when Marvin Gaye breaks it down at the end and wraps his velvety voice around the classic couplet: "Everybody want to live, don't nobody really want to die, you know you're feeling me, right?" Oh wait, that line isn't in Gaye's 1971 original, it's an ad-lib made by noted humanitarian "rapper" Fred Durst on the cover of "What's Going On" by Artists Against AIDS Worldwide. "What's Going On" was conceived by Bono and Jermaine Dupri as, presumably, a selfless act of artistic altruism intended to benefit AIDS programs around the world. What it ended up being, however, was yet another self-congratulatory, celebrity-bozo circle-jerk, with the likes of Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, the Backstreet Boys, and the bald tub of goo from Staind somehow failing to conjure Gaye's graceful gravitas.
4. Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (1984, 1989, and 2004)
The almost cosmic tackiness of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?"—a project that gathered Britain's top music stars to combat famine in Ethiopia—has been catalogued exhaustively since the record became a phenomenon in 1984. And it's still a brain-melter. The song's video is a rap sheet of staggering crimes against tact: Shots of chart-topping millionaires walking around in fur coats and signing autographs. A close-up of Sting singing the line, "the bitter sting of tears." Bono delivering the direly embarrassing "Thank God it's them instead of you" in the original, then repeating the lyric in 2004 when Band Aid 20 reprised "Do They Know?"—a low-key but equally smug take on the tune. Surprisingly, the least annoying version of the song came courtesy of Band Aid II, the overlooked 1989 sequel; then again, it's easy to keep egos in check when Kylie Minogue is by far the biggest star in the room. Underlying Band Aid's sense of self-importance, though, is the song's basic ignorance: Ethiopia, a country that's more than 50 percent Christian, probably doesn't need to be schooled about Christmas by Boy George, Lisa Stansfield, and whoever the hell Sugababes are.
5. Hear N' Aid, "Stars" (1986)
Is "Stars," by mid-'80s heavy-metal charity group Hear N' Aid, overblown? Let's see: In the very first line, Ronnie James Dio sings softly, "Who cries for the children? I do!" And that's the subtlest part of the song. So yes, "Stars" is a touch on the bombastic side. Inspired by the lack of metal-heads on USA For Africa's template-setting "We Are The World," Hear N' Aid's rockin' shot across the bow of African hunger is, as the title suggests, more about supporting the massive egos of its participants than supporting starving children. With Rob Halford, Don Dokken, Kevin DuBrow, and other distinguished headbangers of the time gamely trying to out-shriek and out-ham each other, "Stars" does a stage-long knee-slide straight into the waiting arms of self-parody.
6. The West Coast Rap All-Stars, "We're All In The Same Gang" (1990)
Thanks to producer Dr. Dre, "We're All In The Same Gang" is at least better musically than most heavy-handed cause songs. Ignore the words, and you can almost imagine it's another prime-era N.W.A. track about blasting motherfuckers in the face with a sawed-off while bitches lick your enormous balls. The problem with "We're All In The Same Gang" is context. Sure, rapping about ending gang violence is noble, but can one song outweigh the blood-soaked and bullet-riddled gangsta mythology that West Coast rap was built on, especially when the video looks about as cool as an episode of Family Matters? While Straight Outta Compton didn't necessarily influence youngsters to grab guns and start shooting people, "We're All In The Same Gang" definitely never convinced them to stop.
7. The King Dream Chorus And Holiday Crew, "King Holiday" (1986)
The combination of hard rhymes and soft R&B has proven surprisingly potent in recent years, but this 1986 single doesn't know how to balance the two. A tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. written by Kurtis Blow at the request of King's son Dexter Scott King, "King Holiday" finds an all-star cast of mid-'80s rap and R&B stars trading unmemorable verses against the blandest of synth-heavy backing tracks. Any song that brings Run DMC and Whodini together with New Edition and Ricky Martin-era Menudo can't be all bad. And it's fascinating to revisit a time when a healthy-looking Whitney Houston only warranted a little more screen time than Lisa Lisa. (Though based on the video, she was excused from socializing with either the Dream Chorus or the Holiday Crew.) But the noble sentiment soars above an execution so dull that not even the Fat Boys' Human Beat Box can make it funky.
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