We Are the World redux

There’s a great piece by JVL in the latest issue of The Weekly Standard that gets to the heart of just why celebrity singalongs are oh-so-pointless:

Between “We Are the World” and Hands Across America, USA for Africa banked nearly $70 million. By early 1987, the group told reporters that it had sent $5.5 million to Ethiopia, $6 million to Sudan, and $15 million to eight other African countries. The rest of their money stood pat, dribbling out here and there over the years, just a tiny rivulet of the $1 trillion in aid foreigners sent to the continent during the last 60 years. Not that the group didn’t make some lasting impacts. In 1991, for instance, USA for Africa announced the establishment of the Leland Community Development Fellowship to bring African development leaders every year to network on the sacred ground at the Carter Center.

Nevertheless, the benefit concert persisted. Following “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and “We Are the World,” more pop stars signed up for the Live Aid mega-concert during the summer of 1985. The two concerts, simultaneously in London and Philadelphia—Phil Collins was so concerned about Africa that he took the Concorde and played both shows—attracted a global TV audience of some 400 million viewers. It was billed as “The day the music changed the world.” (Note the second “the.”) The money raised—somewhere between $80 million and $110 million, depending on who you believe—sounded impressive. But as the Los Angeles Times reported, “All the rock charities combined earned less than $125 million in 1985. .??.??. The Red Cross received more help from the Mormon Church than from Live Aid and USA for Africa combined—and with only a fraction of the publicity.”

It reminds me of the apt Simpsons parody from the show’s brilliant early seasons: Bart has fallen down the town well, leading Krusty and Sting to organize a benefit concert. What to do with the money? Well, first they have to pay for promotion, the recording studio, etc. — those limos ain’t free, you know — and then whatever’s left they’ll toss down the well. They obviously learned well from previous benefit concerts…