(Newswire.net — November 28, 2014) — Musician and activist Bob Geldof and Midge Ure wrote the famous megahit “Do They Know It’s Christmas” back in 1984. The purpose of the song was to unite music stars in Band Aid, to show how the world should be united in a goal to help the poor in Africa. The song was performed at huge fundraising humanitarian concert that was backed by every musician on the planet.
Band Aid hosted some of the greatest names in music history, like David Bowe, Michael Jackson, Bono Vox, Paul McCartney, Sting, Duran Duran, Phil Collins and many others. Later, there were two additional songs recorded to raise awareness about people that are starving in Africa.
A new version of an old hit was recently released by the same title “Do They Know It’s Christmas”. This time, the goal is to raise funds to help fight Ebola in Africa. New music stars ‘joined’ Band Aid singing an old tune with a new beat. One Direction, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sandé and Ellie Goulding along with Coldplay, Underworld, Sinead O’Connor, and others. The only guest star from the original Band Aid in the new crew is Bono Vox who participated for the third time.
The list of singers in this newest version, however, started to shrink after some musicians refused to take a part. Previously announced as a star guest Adelle renounced the project. Lily Allen said she would rather give a donation than to sell a song under ‘Buy the song – stop the virus’ slogan.
It seems that old ideas in new clothes are not enough to activate music force in humanitarian purpose. It turned out that many music stars refused Geldof’s offer to unite once again in humanitarian Band Aid, but the reasons defer from one to another, however, the surprise is that many disputed the title of the song because Africa is populated mainly with Muslims, so the ‘Christmas time’ would be inappropriate.
Even, Emeli Sandé who participated in the project commented that it was completely wrong and called for Geldof to write an entirely new song for Ebola awareness.
There are many ways to keep donations rolling in other than encouraging the public to delete the single and download it again, charities said.