A friend recommended "The Greatest Night in Pop," a documentary about the making of "We Are the World" and I have a theory about what's going on.
Quincy Jones was the producer for the song and when all the stars are assembled in their choir formation, he instructs them, if the song goes outside your range, don't make an attempt, don't sing a harmony, just stop singing. The idea is, there are so many voices, no one will miss any particular one so don't force it.
I don't think I can get inside Bob Dylan's head and predict what he thinks but it's possible that he thought, "There isn't a single note in this song in my range so I'm just gonna sit out."
I fully lived through the era of music where large groups of musicians were getting together to Make A Difference... Live Aid, We Are the World, Do They Know It's Christmas?, etc. but I wasn't aware enough to really keep track and not having MTV was also a big factor. Case in point, I had never heard of "Voices That Care". Do you know what that is?
"Voices That Care" is the song (and the group) which was released for the Gulf War. With everyone from Celine Dion to Garth Brooks to Kenny G and Michael Bolton, it really underscores the low point that music hit in the early 90s. That's not even getting into the assemblage of non-singing actors and celebrities that is too long to reproduce.
"Hey we're putting together a song."
"OK, who you got?"
"I have Janet Gretzky, Nell Carter, Don King, Jon Lovitz and Mike Tyson."
"I'll tell you what you have there,,, you have a hit."
The song was not meant to be pro-war or anti-war or political in any way, the point was merely to support the troops. It's hard to criticize such a benign stance but I also can't help but laugh at the generic "Sending Our Love Down the Well" nature of it. Perhaps it's the final straw that gave us Famous Helping People. Who knows. "We're sending love and care to all the troops" Uh, okay...?
To round off the topic, there was also a Heavy Metal assembly to help famine in Africa (Hear 'n Aid) and another Heavy Metal group that was limited to just Swedish artists (Swedish Metal Aid) that helped... something. Uh, it was for charity...
The comments in my original post on "We are the World" parodies reminded me of Conan's own version. Unlike other benefit songs which help out people in Haiti or people in Africa, etc., Conan decided to go another direction: why limit yourself to just one cause or even just one region ... or even just one species? How about making a song that helps out people and animals with general problems in a general way?
This is from the earlier days when Carl "Oldie" Olsen was still around/alive. Now, HE'S a big star who I was surprised to see.
I believe that next internet meme may be the Sting facepalm.
The cold open to this week's SNL pokes fun at the new "We Are the World". I actually haven't even seen the new one. I didn't even know it was released.
Like I said, I haven't seen the new one, so I don't know if the parody is accurate but I'm thinking it is. It isn't so much that there was a lack of effort or that stars just don't care about charity, it's that there aren't any stars anymore. Sounds weird to say, sounds like a stupid "things aren't like the old days", but think about it, who's the modern day equivalent of Michael Jackson? Who are the people that if you got them all in a room you would say, "I can't believe they got all these big names in one room, this is unbelievable!". Puff Daddy? Eminem? Black Eyed Peas? HA! At the moment I can't think of any group of modern-day pop musicians that would impress me.
Back in the day, SNL spoofed the original "celebrity cause anthem" trend by doing a pro-free-range chicken song called "Set the Chickens Free". There was one while after that that sought to explain the Whitewater scandal. Those were classics. I hope someone gets them on the internet sometime.
