One would have to be very young, or have spent most of the last forty years on a planet other than our own, or in a deep coma, not to know the saying ‘We are the Earth’ even by hearsay. It is one of the most famous songs in existence, although it does not seem to have much merit on an artistic level. -but effective: one of those whose chorus does not disappear even with bleach-and this is especially so because it is sung by almost fifty voices and, more importantly, among them michael jacksonBruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Tina Turneramong other members of American music royalty.
The intense creative process was the subject of ‘Pop’s Greatest Night’Documentary consisting of a combination of archive footage and interviews with many people who participated in the recordings. It was presented at the Sundance Festival days before its premiere on the streaming platform. netflix.
The spark that gave it life came at the end of 1984, when musician Bob Geldof persuaded the most important British pop stars of the time to write and write. They will record a pop song to raise funds to help alleviate famine in Ethiopia; The result of their ventures was a supergroup called Band-Aid and ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ It was a song titled. On the other side of the Atlantic, Harry Belafonte, who was not only a respected African-American musician but also an advocate for civil rights and social activism, heard this and felt challenged.
As the film recalls, the singer spoke to Lionel Richie, saying that Band-Aids were mostly “white people saving black people” and questioned why there weren’t more “black people saving black people”. They immediately contacted producer Quincy Jones to prepare a response to this song from the United States.
Jones, who had recently worked with Michael Jackson on the famous ‘Thriller’ album, entrusted Richie with the task of quickly composing the song with Stevie Wonder. With Wonder not returning his calls, the “All Night Long” writer asked Jackson for help writing “We Are the World,” and the resulting process forced him to deal with the King of Pop’s many antics. chimpanzee ‘Bubbles’.
Immediately afterward, the logistical nightmare began: Several dozen artists needed to be recruited, and a way was found to get them together in the same recording studio as quickly as possible. Solution? Take it January 28, 1985, in Los Angeles, the night after the American Music Awards ceremony, which would bring together most of the already selected artists. The meeting, called ‘USA for Africa’, will last until 6 am the next day.
Many of the singing stars chime in throughout ‘The Greatest Night In Pop’ to share their memories of the event; these include Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson, Cindy Lauper and Kenny Loggins; Truth be told, none of them have anything particularly interesting to say about it. Sheila E., on the other hand, reveals in an old interview that her presence in the artist selection was just a temptation to convince her friend Prince to join the group; The Minneapolis native didn’t fall into the trap, and the part he had to sing was given to Huey Lewis at the last minute. In the film, Huey Lewis admits the terror such a responsibility made him feel. Another big miss was Madonna, who could not receive an invitation even though she had just released ‘Like A Virgin’.‘. Even more inexplicable, in any case, is the picture painted by comedian Dan Aykroyd among the select musicians.
Vulnerability in work
‘Pop’s Greatest Night’ doesn’t evoke any sense of the song’s charitable aspectIt also doesn’t really talk about the purpose of the money raised or the actual help it provides. The film’s great appeal lies in the second half of the footage, where we see the artists in the studio working on the combination of their vocal talents, feeling vulnerable because they don’t have assistants, or losing their patience and sense of humor. .
We discover that Al Jarreau is having trouble recording his episode because he drank too much wine, and Robinson is the only one who has the courage to tell Jackson that he’s made a mistake. Wonder insisted that part of the song be sung in Swahili until someone told him that “Swahili is not spoken in Ethiopia.”Dylan spent most of the night feeling completely miserable, and Jones served not only as a producer but also as a therapist to manage such disparate personalities. He even invited Geldof to the studio, who had just spent time in Africa and had a few stories to soothe the egos of his American colleagues.
Ultimately, Richie is the main hero of the film and is probably the person who does the most to make ‘We Are the World’ happen. and after so long, he’s still stunned by the overwhelming success it represented – “I still don’t know how we did it, because it was an impossible thing,” he admits in the film. Written and recorded in less than two months, it sold over 20 million copies in its time. and currently remains the eighth best-selling single in history, having raised more than $80 million for humanitarian causes in Africa so far; This is more than double when inflation is taken into account. And of course its chorus continues to refuse to leave us.
Source: Informacion
Brandon Hall is an author at “Social Bites”. He is a cultural aficionado who writes about the latest news and developments in the world of art, literature, music, and more. With a passion for the arts and a deep understanding of cultural trends, Brandon provides engaging and thought-provoking articles that keep his readers informed and up-to-date on the latest happenings in the cultural world.