The bubble of optimism surrounding the dawning of this new decade has been burst with the horrific, yet all-too-familiar, scenes of devastation in Haiti. The honeymoon period [Zeitgeist ed. eh?] for this nascent decade is well and truly over. With this latest world trauma comes the equally all-too-familiar, celebrity-endorsed ‘charity single’ – which to me seems like a celebrity appeal too far.
Before continuing, let me advance this caveat. I am not opposed to charity appeals, fundraisers or raising awareness and funds for world causes. Nor do I necessarily oppose the participation of ‘celebrities’ (however tenuous their claim to this mythical title may be) in such events. Any and all money raised by the sale of this song, despite the ulterior, more cynical motives for its existence one could level at Simon Cowell and his cohort of pop stars, will be a positive and desperately needed contribution to a deserved cause. However, such a charity act has its own unfortunate draw backs which need addressing.
Firstly, and most obviously (so obviously I need only mention it in passing really), these charity karaoke sessions are far from being purely altruistic. Whilst the enhancement of celebrity profile is obviously at stake for the performers, more significantly it allowed the self-styled cultural mogul Simon Cowell to further cement his position (at least in his own head) as a serious world figure. “I will release a single for Haiti in the next seven to ten days” he proclaimed in his uniquely uber-smug manner. Oh good; Simon Cowell is releasing a song. I can stop worrying about it now.
Secondly, the problem with this (indeed with all charity records) is that they run the risk of obscuring the specifics of the very cause they are aiming to support. Inevitably when celebrities are involved, the media tends to focus upon them, leaving the actual victims/ place in question out of the narrative. This is not exclusively the case with this song ‘for’ Haiti, but previous appeals demonstrate warnings from history. Take the original Live Aid. The cause and the genuine outpouring of good-will was staggering and is still a cultural touchstone today, over 25 years later (and the benchmark against which all subsequent charity appeals will be inevitably be compared). Yet many references to Live Aid now focus almost exclusively on the concert at Wembley stadium and the various acts performing – most notably Freddy Mercury and Queen. Very little, it seems, remains of the specifics of the original appeal, other than that ubiquitous clip of ‘Sir’ Bob Geldof shouting “give us yer focking money!” There pervades now only a general notion that Live Aid was to ‘help Africa’ – a concept so oblique as to be totally meaningless. An even more notable (and contemporary) case-in-point came from 2001. A charity single –a version of Marvin Gaye’s ‘what’s going on’ (which featured, by all accounts, the single worst rap performance ever recorded, courtesy of erstwhile shouty-angst-man Fred Durst[1]). This charity single began life, ostensibly, as a charity single for aids in Africa – a similarly oblique sentiment. However, as the attacks on September the 11th took place, the concept (and portion of the monetary donation) of the song was simply changed. Just changed, like that. Like the actual cause – the very reason for the project was entirely secondary to the act of making the record. What this does is obscure the specifics of a charity case – of all charitable cases – amalgamating them all into one, non-descript ‘other’ that we, from our privileged position, choose to help (or are cajoled into helping).
Finally, a musicological concern. Now, as someone who believes wholeheartedly in the power and pertinence of popular music, this next sentence does not come easily to me, and I don’t say it lightly. There are some world events and instances for which popular music is not equipped to describe or deal with. An earthquake and the loss of some 500,000 lives, I would suggest, is one such event. As a consequence, any choice of song from the popular music catalogue to attempt to encapsulate the horror of the earthquake will sound patronising at best and at worst downright insensitive. The choice of ‘everybody hurts’ is a classic example. The sentiment is there, but the vehicle for delivery is completely inappropriate – particularly considering the Western-musical-tradition-centric choice of almost all of these charity songs. This song (if it were ever to be heard by anyone in Haiti – arguably it is not meant to be for them to hear) can’t possibly define or even hint at the emotions present in that country, cultural and linguistic boundaries notwithstanding. In my head, the lyrics provoke the following response: “everybody hurts? Yeah, some more than others it would appear”!
The real danger of using popular music to try and sum up such a major world event is that it diminishes the musical vocabulary available to us. This has the effect of cheapening actual catastrophic events by linking them sonically to the imagined catastrophic events of the world of television and popular culture. By this I mean, if you chose this song to try and ‘sum up’ (or at least connect it to) the Haitian earthquake, it is made the equivalent (at least through the subliminal effect of music) of a contestant being booted off ‘the X factor’ in week five. ‘Everybody Hurts’ is the exact type of song (if not the exact song) that would accompany the montage of ‘best bits’ of a contestant’s ‘life changing experience’ whilst they watch on tearfully in a little cut-away box in the corner of the screen. This effect of ‘X factor-fying’ the whole appeal is compounded by the fact that even the faces connected with each (X Factor and the single) are exactly the same[2]. If this music is intrinsically linked to this cultural phenomenon (i.e. the X factor – a cultural phenomenon that receives infinitely more coverage worldwide that the whole country of Haiti in general), the danger of using it to attempt to explain to the public the social impact of a natural disaster is obvious.
Once again, I’m not levelling these charges directly at Simon Cowell (though the temptation to do so is great). I’m sure he is not doing all the above mentioned things in a cynical fashion (at least I hope not). After all, pop music and the cult of celebrity are the currencies that he deals in – it is what he knows – and if he can refract the light from that onto a genuinely worthy cause, even if only for a fleeting moment, then there Are positives to be taken, particularly for the people of Haiti. But we must be wary of putting all our trust in this cult of celebrity. Why do we need a charity single in the first place? This is a question the answer to which, I suspect, may be too depressing to contemplate. Sufficed to say it would be a truly self-obsessed society we live in if we are only prepared to give money to a cause if a celebrity tells us to. I don’t think for a second this is the case with this country. The tsunami that affected Thailand and Sri Lanka (and numerous other places too various to list here – and is probably still affecting) in 2004 had no celebrity single attached to it (as far as I’m aware), yet the response to aid appeals was arguably the largest ever seen. So the charity song is by no means necessary to raise public awareness (or money).
The real concern for me is not that celebrities are hijacking natural disasters as a vehicle for their own, self-serving, purposes. Nor is it the hypocrisy of the super-rich commanding the relatively rich to donate money to the exceedingly poor (that is the way our world is structured). The real concern is that the same musical language is, more and more, being used to describe the real-world disasters as the television-world disasters, turning the former into just another soap opera (one from which we can turn off when the interesting story line has played itself out). We need to ensure that these two worlds are kept very, very distant.
[1] Ol’ Red Cap’s lyric “somebody tell me what’s going on/ human beings using humans for a bomb” is so insensitive – so spectacularly misinformed as to make the titular, and presumably rhetorical, question ‘what’s going on’ sound like a child-like and genuine plea for information.
[2] Of the performers on this charity single, Alexandra Burke, Joe McStreak-of-piss and JLS have all been contestants, Cheryl Cole is a judge and Robbie Williams and Bon Jovi have both very recently been guest stars on the X Factor. Similarly, Susan Boyle has appeared on the so-similar-as-to-be-the-same-thing ‘Britain’s got Talent’.
EVERYBODY HURTS (THOUGH MOST MULTI-MILLIONAIRE CELEBRITY POP STARS PROBABLY ‘HURT’ IN A WAY THAT IS DEMONSTRABLY DIFFERENT FROM THE DEAD OF HAITI)
The bubble of optimism surrounding the dawning of this new decade has been burst with the horrific, yet all-too-familiar, scenes of devastation in Haiti. The honeymoon period [Zeitgeist ed. eh?] for this nascent decade is well and truly over. With this latest world trauma comes the equally all-too-familiar, celebrity-endorsed ‘charity single’ – which to me seems like a celebrity appeal too far.
Before continuing, let me advance this caveat. I am not opposed to charity appeals, fundraisers or raising awareness and funds for world causes. Nor do I necessarily oppose the participation of ‘celebrities’ (however tenuous their claim to this mythical title may be) in such events. Any and all money raised by the sale of this song, despite the ulterior, more cynical motives for its existence one could level at Simon Cowell and his cohort of pop stars, will be a positive and desperately needed contribution to a deserved cause. However, such a charity act has its own unfortunate draw backs which need addressing.
Firstly, and most obviously (so obviously I need only mention it in passing really), these charity karaoke sessions are far from being purely altruistic. Whilst the enhancement of celebrity profile is obviously at stake for the performers, more significantly it allowed the self-styled cultural mogul Simon Cowell to further cement his position (at least in his own head) as a serious world figure. “I will release a single for Haiti in the next seven to ten days” he proclaimed in his uniquely uber-smug manner. Oh good; Simon Cowell is releasing a song. I can stop worrying about it now.
Secondly, the problem with this (indeed with all charity records) is that they run the risk of obscuring the specifics of the very cause they are aiming to support. Inevitably when celebrities are involved, the media tends to focus upon them, leaving the actual victims/ place in question out of the narrative. This is not exclusively the case with this song ‘for’ Haiti, but previous appeals demonstrate warnings from history. Take the original Live Aid. The cause and the genuine outpouring of good-will was staggering and is still a cultural touchstone today, over 25 years later (and the benchmark against which all subsequent charity appeals will be inevitably be compared). Yet many references to Live Aid now focus almost exclusively on the concert at Wembley stadium and the various acts performing – most notably Freddy Mercury and Queen. Very little, it seems, remains of the specifics of the original appeal, other than that ubiquitous clip of ‘Sir’ Bob Geldof shouting “give us yer focking money!” There pervades now only a general notion that Live Aid was to ‘help Africa’ – a concept so oblique as to be totally meaningless. An even more notable (and contemporary) case-in-point came from 2001. A charity single –a version of Marvin Gaye’s ‘what’s going on’ (which featured, by all accounts, the single worst rap performance ever recorded, courtesy of erstwhile shouty-angst-man Fred Durst[1]). This charity single began life, ostensibly, as a charity single for aids in Africa – a similarly oblique sentiment. However, as the attacks on September the 11th took place, the concept (and portion of the monetary donation) of the song was simply changed. Just changed, like that. Like the actual cause – the very reason for the project was entirely secondary to the act of making the record. What this does is obscure the specifics of a charity case – of all charitable cases – amalgamating them all into one, non-descript ‘other’ that we, from our privileged position, choose to help (or are cajoled into helping).
Finally, a musicological concern. Now, as someone who believes wholeheartedly in the power and pertinence of popular music, this next sentence does not come easily to me, and I don’t say it lightly. There are some world events and instances for which popular music is not equipped to describe or deal with. An earthquake and the loss of some 500,000 lives, I would suggest, is one such event. As a consequence, any choice of song from the popular music catalogue to attempt to encapsulate the horror of the earthquake will sound patronising at best and at worst downright insensitive. The choice of ‘everybody hurts’ is a classic example. The sentiment is there, but the vehicle for delivery is completely inappropriate – particularly considering the Western-musical-tradition-centric choice of almost all of these charity songs. This song (if it were ever to be heard by anyone in Haiti – arguably it is not meant to be for them to hear) can’t possibly define or even hint at the emotions present in that country, cultural and linguistic boundaries notwithstanding. In my head, the lyrics provoke the following response: “everybody hurts? Yeah, some more than others it would appear”!
The real danger of using popular music to try and sum up such a major world event is that it diminishes the musical vocabulary available to us. This has the effect of cheapening actual catastrophic events by linking them sonically to the imagined catastrophic events of the world of television and popular culture. By this I mean, if you chose this song to try and ‘sum up’ (or at least connect it to) the Haitian earthquake, it is made the equivalent (at least through the subliminal effect of music) of a contestant being booted off ‘the X factor’ in week five. ‘Everybody Hurts’ is the exact type of song (if not the exact song) that would accompany the montage of ‘best bits’ of a contestant’s ‘life changing experience’ whilst they watch on tearfully in a little cut-away box in the corner of the screen. This effect of ‘X factor-fying’ the whole appeal is compounded by the fact that even the faces connected with each (X Factor and the single) are exactly the same[2]. If this music is intrinsically linked to this cultural phenomenon (i.e. the X factor – a cultural phenomenon that receives infinitely more coverage worldwide that the whole country of Haiti in general), the danger of using it to attempt to explain to the public the social impact of a natural disaster is obvious.
Once again, I’m not levelling these charges directly at Simon Cowell (though the temptation to do so is great). I’m sure he is not doing all the above mentioned things in a cynical fashion (at least I hope not). After all, pop music and the cult of celebrity are the currencies that he deals in – it is what he knows – and if he can refract the light from that onto a genuinely worthy cause, even if only for a fleeting moment, then there Are positives to be taken, particularly for the people of Haiti. But we must be wary of putting all our trust in this cult of celebrity. Why do we need a charity single in the first place? This is a question the answer to which, I suspect, may be too depressing to contemplate. Sufficed to say it would be a truly self-obsessed society we live in if we are only prepared to give money to a cause if a celebrity tells us to. I don’t think for a second this is the case with this country. The tsunami that affected Thailand and Sri Lanka (and numerous other places too various to list here – and is probably still affecting) in 2004 had no celebrity single attached to it (as far as I’m aware), yet the response to aid appeals was arguably the largest ever seen. So the charity song is by no means necessary to raise public awareness (or money).
The real concern for me is not that celebrities are hijacking natural disasters as a vehicle for their own, self-serving, purposes. Nor is it the hypocrisy of the super-rich commanding the relatively rich to donate money to the exceedingly poor (that is the way our world is structured). The real concern is that the same musical language is, more and more, being used to describe the real-world disasters as the television-world disasters, turning the former into just another soap opera (one from which we can turn off when the interesting story line has played itself out). We need to ensure that these two worlds are kept very, very distant.
[1] Ol’ Red Cap’s lyric “somebody tell me what’s going on/ human beings using humans for a bomb” is so insensitive – so spectacularly misinformed as to make the titular, and presumably rhetorical, question ‘what’s going on’ sound like a child-like and genuine plea for information.
[2] Of the performers on this charity single, Alexandra Burke, Joe McStreak-of-piss and JLS have all been contestants, Cheryl Cole is a judge and Robbie Williams and Bon Jovi have both very recently been guest stars on the X Factor. Similarly, Susan Boyle has appeared on the so-similar-as-to-be-the-same-thing ‘Britain’s got Talent’.