Band Aid
Band Aid is what is referred to in the music of world as a supergroup. That means a bunch of popular artists get together and collaborate on a song. Their uniform purpose is not to sell records per se. Rather it is to use the proceeds from those sales in order to fund a humanitarian issue or something of the sort. And in terms of Band Aid, their original cause was fighting famine in Ethiopia.
There has been two iterations of the group during the 20th century. The original Band Aid came out in 1984 and featured A-listers such as Bono, Paul McCartney, Phil Collins, Boy George and Sting, i.e. artists primarily from the UK. They were able to raise nearly $200,000,000 in the name of helping Ethiopia.
The second Band Aid, which came out during 1989, was headlined by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Cliff Richard and Bananarama.
The third iteration of the band re-recorded “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, the original song which the first Band Aid put together. Bono and Paul McCartney were amongst those who re-participated. And this time around they collaborated with a ton of contemporary artists, including:
- Estelle
- Dido
- Dizzee Rascal
- Ms Dynamite
- Chris Martin of Coldplay
