Some say celebrity song is out of tune with Africa

Band Aid released a new 'Do They Know It's Christmas,' but is it relevant?
By MARK RICE-OXLEY
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
LONDON -- As charity jingles go, it was right up there with the Salvation Army's bell ringing. The song raised $150 million in African relief, spawned Live Aid, and inspired the U.S. copycat "We are the World."
Twenty years after an all-star lineup recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas" to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, the record is back in the shops again, promising another smash hit for the Band Aid organization that launched the original. And with some 300,000 copies sold in the first week, it's already the fastest-selling record of 2004.
Yet this time around the response is more equivocal. Critics have raised an eyebrow at outdated, insensitive lyrics, while some aid activists are fuming at the song's revival of an unflattering image of Africa as a dependent, hopeless victim of geography and climate.
Some commentators have even questioned whether hand outs for Africa work at all in the long run, while even those buying the record seem to be doing so out of generosity of spirit rather than genuine affection for the record.
Good intentions
The intentions, as in 1984, are impeccable: The funds will be channeled this time to the victims of what the United States terms "genocide" in western Sudan; stars performed free of charge; heroic production schedules got the single in the shops barely a month after the project was conceived.
But the 1984 phenomenon is proving a hard act to follow. Dido and Coldplay aside, this year's line-up is rather obscure compared to 1984's Sting, George Michael, Duran Duran and Boy George. "The line-up is an unglamorous bunch, and the record is very non-descript," says Neil McCormick, a London-based music critic.
An unscientific straw poll of those who have bought or downloaded the record yielded similar sentiments. The almost universal response was "good cause, terrible record."
"We bought it for the charity aspect, though it bothers me that they just re-recorded the old one," says Barry Wright. "You'd think they'd update it somehow, revamp it."
Response
Those behind the record say that "time restrictions" made it impossible to record a totally new tune. And in any case this perennial Christmas anthem has the added benefit of instant recognizability: The first broadcast of the video drew some 13 million viewers, formidable ratings for British television. Promoters are confident it has international appeal too, launching the single in more than 40 countries, though not in the United States for reasons they won't discuss.
"It's only a pop song but this little pop song saves lives," said U2's lead singer Bono, the only performer to have sung on both versions. "This can be the generation that turns this supertanker of indifference around," he told a BBC documentary on the making of Band Aid 20.
Whether the crooning helps the cause may depend on how the lyrics resonate with 21st century audiences. So far, the words have drawn fire for being tactless ("Tonight thank God it's them instead of you"), misleading, and in parts either meaningless or wrong -- or both ("And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas").
Such nitpicks aside, critics argue that the song creates an unhelpful overall impression of a starving continent reliant on charity.
"It has the potential to be actively damaging," notes Dave Timms, spokesman for the World Development Movement, an independent international group that campaigns against poverty. "This isn't just another pop song -- it's supposed to mean something. It has a set of images attached to those lyrics which present an inaccurate image of Africa's poor."