The Big Guns

We're all of course aware of the disaster in Haiti at the moment. And I hope we've all been in prayer and giving to charity whenever possible in the last week or so. Outpouring and response from the musical world has been astonishing. The first musicians I heard speaking up were Arcade Fire; a great band, but it was difficult to see how their rallying call could spread ripples outside of the devotee indie community.

Now, they've brought out The Big Guns.
This article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8473739.stm

will tell you how Simon Cowell has been put in charge, allegedly by Gordon Brown, of a charity single to raise money for the disaster. The chosen song is a cover of "Everybody Hurts" by REM.

Many of us have a LOT of problems with the X Factor. Simon Cowell divides me. He's an extremely clever and entertaining man. However, he has established a grip on chart music which has lowered musicianship, passion for real music and turned chart music into something focussed largely on instant fame, but more so on turning a profit. He's constructed an incredibly powerful monopoly, which, more often than not, a lot of us despise.

But now, I think we all have to be glad of the power that Simon Cowell and his business empire have. We've all seen that he can quickly and easily organise a track that millions of people will buy (even if it's just a cover!), market it effectively and turn a massive amount of money. And despite all of my gripes about reality TV, the state of the charts, the X Factor etc I'm now very glad for the powerful and wealthy position Cowell is in. One that will allow a massive amount of money to go towards helping Haitians.

This really could be the first true and organic charity single since the original Band Aid. The attempts to emulate it since have been:
a) rubbish
b) failures
c) more about profile than charity
But this one is fast, organic and clearly heartfelt, and also looks set to have a cracking line up. Even if the line up isn't incredible, even if it were DJ Ironik, N-Dubz, JLS, Chris Brown and the rest of that useless bunch; if it's going to raise as much money as possible in as short a time a possible for Haiti, I'm all for it. It may even get a few folks into REM.

In related news:

http://pitchfork.com/news/37649-kanye-not-invited-to-haiti-telethon/

The people organising the main Haiti charity concert in the US have refused to invite Kanye West to perform, thanks to his impeccable live television appearances in the past i.e. "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and of course "Im'a let you finish..." You know what? Good. The last thing anyone wants is someone taking the attention of a charity event and focussing it on themselves. I await Kanye's response.

Please folks, buy this charity single when it comes out, watch or attend any concerts for it that you can, I hear Radiohead are planning something as well. Most importantly, pray for and donate to the efforts. The people there are desperate for both.