Remember when Bob Geldof went from being the former singer of the Boomtown Rats and star of the film adaptation of “Pink Floyd’s The Wall” to being an internationally known humanitarian who assembled a group of the hottest British-pop recording artists to record a song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”? Geldof called the project Band Aid and recorded the song, written by Midge Ure, in 1984 with the help of members of U2, Duran Duran, and Wham!. The money went to aid starving children in Ethiopa and eventually led to a Band Aid concert that featured a who’s who of famous musicians, from Phil Collins to Black Sabbath to Led Zeppelin.
Twenty years later, a group of contemporary Brit-pop musicians are making plans to get together to re-record the classic relief song with the same goal in mind, raising money for starving children in Ethiopa and Sudan. Among the artists scheduled to perform on the remake (which should be recorded in mid-November and then immediately shipped out to record stores) are members of: Oasis (Noel Gallagher), Blur (Damon Albarn), Jamelia, Coldplay, and The Darkness and Travis. Geldof is hoping to get Bono in to re-record his line from the 1984 version of the song, “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you.” [full story]