On this past Friday, the remake "We Are The World" debuted during the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The song was recorded by a new cast of today's artists with the song's proceeds providing relief for earthquake-ravished Haiti. It was a valiant effort for a noble cause but as for the song, it fell well short of the original which was recorded 25 years ago.
When I first heard that "We Are The World" was getting refreshed, I immediately was interested. I'm a huge fan of the original which was co-written by my favorite artist, Michael Jackson. I missed the original broadcast because I was busy putting together my new computer. After I got the computer up and running, I logged onto Hulu.com and watched it there. I was so disappointed in what I heard and saw.
I was expecting the song to start off with a bang but my ears were greeted by what sounded like a 8-year-old boy. Then it quickly went downhill from there with artist after artist oversinging their respective parts. It seemed like everyone was trying to make their parts sound unique by altering the phrasing or adding needless runs. The original was wonderfully written but all of those extra notes in the remake just crowded the melody.
I have no clue what to call what Wyclef Jean was doing but I don't think you can call that singing. The use of Auto-Tune was prevalent and needed when people like Lil Wayne were singing. After that point, it seemed like they thought the "synthesized" voices sounded cool so they used it with everyone after that.
The rapping outro at the end was "okay" but it was a weak attempt to modernize this song. It was also a poor choice to include Kanye West in there. Actually there were a bunch of other questionable inclusions such as Vince Vaughn. Seriously? A crazy punk rapper and a comedic actor?
Overall, I think this remake was a noble effort for a great cause but fell way short of the original. The remake wasn't all bad however. It included some recordings of Michael Jackson from the original. Good thing they were wise enough to leave those parts intact.
Okay, so I listened to it because you linked it. I liked it until the rapping. They completely lost me there.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting to note is that when the first one came out, I knew every single artist and attendee. Now, I was lucky to know half of them...