Last night I was with some friends and we were talking about amazing musicians and performers. Most of them were the older generation like Michael Jackson, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Ray Charles etc.
We then compared the two We Are The World recordings and videos. Note the rawness of the first recording, the number of incredible singers and the power behind it.
We then watched the second recent video of We Are The World for Haiti. We were disappointed with it to be honest! Comparing it to the first one, there is a huge difference!
Jennifer Hudson, Pink and Celine Dion show it but where is the rawness or passion from the others?!
Thoughts?
March 26th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
Was your conversation with 50 year olds?!
I agree there’s less raw talent in the new one, but you can’t say only three of them went at it with passion
March 26th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
Well one of them was Amy so practically 50 yeah!
The most passion was those 3 for me, the others had passion, just not much compared to the original is my take on it Calum Upton!
March 28th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I Knew it! When I saw Calum’s comment I knew my name was coming! Us oldies know best Calum! – I’m with Clare, especially in the choral parts there’s no passion coming through – most of them look bored! What’s happened to individuality! (apart from the 3 mentioned-and Mary J!) Also they didn’t need to use Auto Tune in the original one! But at the end of the day it was for a great cause and good on them all for coming together to do it.
March 28th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
I’m not talking about individuality or talent/auto tune etc, obviously major artists today are different in a lot of ways to back then.
Most current artists haven’t set out to get a message across with their music, they’re not that kind of people. They’re just normal people who are good looking and like making pop music. I think considering that, there’s quite a lot of passion on show
March 30th, 2010 at 1:01 am
What a load of shite.
There’s 2 fundamental differences between then and now:
The quality of talent on the first recording is much higher- more than 70% of the people on that record are still credible today.
The first time is was a much bigger deal because nobody had ever done it before (except for Band Aid, of course), and they did it out of (initially) some sort of compassion towards the people.
The new one is from a similar place, but much more of a cash-in- in the sense that it’s more a way for a lot of the new people to boost their media profile.
I reckon, anyway. Really, there’s not much between them. But the 1st is a bit more genuine, for my money.
March 30th, 2010 at 1:08 am
And you can’t really put Jennifer Hudson, Pink (>:{), and Celine Dion in the same league as Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Ray Charles. Even Diana Ross.
Not even the same sport. EVER. I don’t care that the former’s careers haven’t had as much time to develop (except Celine, but… meh)- put them at the same timeframe and there’s still no competition. Critically as artists/writers/performers, you understand. Taste is irrelevant.
*breathes*
March 30th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Hi Magic! Thanks for the thoughts, just to clarify I was not putting those newer artists in the same league as the legends – do not fear!
Keep debating people…
March 31st, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Basically, the whole point I wanted to make here is that it’s silly to compare them in terms of talent/credibility. Nobody is disputing the fact that artistically music ‘isn’t like it used to be’, so that stuff doesn’t need said.
But if the conversation is going to happen, take an old Stevie Wonder song and compare it to a Cheryl Cole track or something, don’t pick on a charity record! We have no idea how passionately the artists on the Haiti record actually felt about the cause. It’s not fair to assume that anyone on there did it for personal gain