The song was released on March 7, 1985, as the first single from the album by Columbia Records. A worldwide commercial success, it topped music charts throughout the world and became the fastest-selling U.S. pop single in history. "We Are the World" received a Quadruple Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America, becoming the first single to be certified multi-platinum.
The cassettes are numbered, and I can't express how important it is not to let this material out of your hands. Please do not make copies, and return this cassette the night of the 28th. In the years to come, when your children ask, 'What did mommy and daddy do for the war against world famine?', you can say proudly, this was your contribution.[11]
not angka we are the world
Each of the performers took their position at around 10:30 p.m. and began to sing. Several hours passed before Stevie Wonder announced that he would like to substitute a line in Swahili for the "sha-lum sha-lin-gay" sound.[20][21] At this point, Waylon Jennings left the recording studio for a short time when it was suggested by some that the song be sung in Swahili.[20][21] A heated debate ensued, in which several artists also rejected the suggestion. The "sha-lum sha-lin-gay" sound ran into opposition as well and was subsequently removed from the song. Jennings returned to the studio and participated in the recording, which bears his name in the end credits. The participants eventually decided to sing something meaningful in English. They chose to sing the new line "One world, Our children", which most of the participants enjoyed.[20]
"We Are the World" is sung from a first-person viewpoint, allowing the audience to "internalize" the message by singing the word we together.[24] It has been described as "an appeal to human compassion".[25] The first lines in the song's repetitive chorus proclaim, "We are the world, we are the children, we are the ones who make a brighter day, so let's start giving".[25] "We Are the World" opens with Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, James Ingram, Tina Turner, and Billy Joel singing the first verse.[26] Michael Jackson and Diana Ross follow, completing the first chorus together.[26] Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, and Al Jarreau sing the second verse, before Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Loggins, Steve Perry, and Daryl Hall go through the second chorus.[26] Co-writer Jackson, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, and Kim Carnes follow with the song's bridge.[26] This structuring of the song is said to "create a sense of continuous surprise and emotional buildup".[2] "We Are the World" concludes with Bob Dylan and Ray Charles singing a full chorus, Wonder and Springsteen duetting, and ad libs from Charles and Ingram.[26]
On March 7, 1985, "We Are the World" was released as a single, in both 7-inch and 12-inch formats.[27][28] The song was the only one released from the We Are the World album and became a chart success around the world. In the U.S., it was a number one hit on the R&B singles chart, the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, and the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for a month.[29][30] The single had debuted at number 21 on the Hot 100, the highest entry since Michael Jackson's "Thriller" entered the charts at number 20 the year before.[25] It took four weeks for the song to claim the number one spot, half the time a single would normally have taken to reach its charting peak.[31] On the Hot 100, the song moved from 21 to 5 to 2 and then number 1. "We Are the World" might have reached the top of the Hot 100 chart sooner, were it not for the success of Phil Collins' "One More Night", which received support from both pop and rock listeners.[31] "We Are the World" also entered Billboard's Top Rock Tracks and Hot Country Singles charts, where it peaked at numbers 27 and 76 respectively.[29] The song became the first single since The Beatles' "Let It Be" to enter Billboard's Top 5 within two weeks of release.[28] Outside the U.S., the single reached number one in Australia, France, Ireland, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. The song peaked at number 2 in two countries: Germany and Austria.[32][33][34]
According to music critic and Bruce Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, "We Are the World" was not widely accepted within the rock music community.[47] The author revealed that the song was "despised" for what it was not: "a rock record, a critique of the political policies that created the famine, a way of finding out how and why famines occur, an all-inclusive representation of the entire worldwide spectrum of post-Presley popular music".[47] Marsh revealed that he felt some of the criticisms were right, while others were silly.[47] He claimed that despite the sentimentality of the song, "We Are the World" was a large-scale pop event with serious political overtones.[47]
"We Are the World" received worldwide radio coverage in the form of an international simultaneous broadcast later that year. Upon spinning the song on their local stations, Georgia radio disc jockeys Bob Wolf and Don Briscar came up with the idea for a worldwide simulcast.[54] They called hundreds of radio and satellite stations asking them to participate. On the morning of April 5, 1985 (Good Friday of that year) at 3:50 pm GMT, over 8,000 radio stations simultaneously broadcast the song around the world.[55] As the song was broadcast, hundreds of people sang along on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.[46][56] A year later, on March 28, 1986 (Good Friday of that year), the simultaneous radio broadcast of "We Are the World" was repeated over 6,000 radio stations worldwide.[30]
I won't ever forget Michael Jackson because his contribution to the song We are the World had a very significant effect on my life. I am 50 now but 25 years ago I was living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which at that time was suffering from a long drought and famine. It was a terrible situation. Lots of people became sick and many more died. Around one million people in all were killed by the famine. In 1984 Michael Jackson, along with a number of other leading musicians, made the song We are the World to raise money for Africa. We received a lot of aid from the world and I was one of those who directly benefitted from it. The wheat flour that was distributed to the famine victims was different to the usual cereal we bought at the market. We baked a special bread from it. The local people named the bread after the great artist and it became known as Michael Bread. It was soft and delicious.When you have been through such hard times you never forget events like this. If you speak to anyone who was in Addis Ababa at that time they will all know what Michael Bread is and I know I will remember it for the rest of my life.[70]
On February 20, 2010, a non-celebrity remake, "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube edition)", was posted to the video sharing website YouTube. Internet personality and singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie conceived and organized the Internet collaboration of 57 unsigned or independent YouTube musicians geographically distributed around the world. Lavie's 2010 YouTube version, a cover of the 1985 original, excludes the rap segment and minimizes the Auto-tune that characterizes the 2010 celebrity remake.[91] Another 2010 remake of the original is the Spanish-language "Somos El Mundo". It was written by Emilio Estefan and his wife Gloria Estefan, and produced by Emilio, Quincy Jones and Univision Communications, the company that funded the project.[92]
"We Are the World" has been recognized as a politically important song, which "affected an international focus on Africa that was simply unprecedented".[45] It has been credited with creating a climate in which musicians from around the world felt inclined to follow.[45] According to The New York Times' Stephen Holden, since the release of "We Are the World", it has been noted that movement has been made within popular music to create songs that address humanitarian concerns.[93] "We Are the World" was also influential in subverting the way music and meaning were produced, showing that musically and racially diverse musicians could work together both productively and creatively.[47] Ebony described the January 28 recording session, in which Quincy Jones brought together a multi-racial group, as being "a major moment in world music that showed we can change the world".[94] "We Are the World", along with Live Aid and Farm Aid, demonstrated that rock music had become more than entertainment, but a political and social movement.[95] Journalist Robert Palmer noted that such songs and events had the ability to reach people around the world, send them a message, and then get results.[95]
Since the release of "We Are the World", and the Band Aid single that influenced it, numerous songs have been recorded in a similar fashion, with the intent to aid disaster victims throughout the world. One such example involved a supergroup of Latin musicians billed as "Hermanos del Tercer Mundo", or "Brothers of the Third World". Among the supergroup of 62 recording artists were Julio Iglesias, José Feliciano, and Sérgio Mendes. Their famine relief song was recorded in the same studio as "We Are the World". Half of the profits raised from the charity single was pledged to USA for Africa. The rest of the money was to be used for impoverished Latin American countries.[96] Other notable examples include the 1989 cover of the Deep Purple song "Smoke on the Water" by a supergroup of hard rock, prog rock, and heavy metal musicians collaborating as Rock Aid Armenia to raise money for victims of the devastating 1988 Armenian earthquake[97] and the 1986 all-star OPM single "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo", which talked about the optimism the Filipinos needed after the People Power Revolution.[98][99]
The 20th anniversary of "We Are the World" was celebrated in 2005. Radio stations around the world paid homage to USA for Africa's creation by simultaneously broadcasting the charity song. In addition to the simulcast, the milestone was marked by the release of a two-disc DVD called We Are the World: The Story Behind the Song.[100] Ken Kragen asserted that the reason behind the simulcast and DVD release was not for USA for Africa to praise themselves for doing a good job, but to "use it to do some more good [for the original charity]. That's all we care about accomplishing."[100] Harry Belafonte also commented on the 20th anniversary of the song. He acknowledged that "We Are the World" had "stood the test of time"; anyone old enough to remember it can still at least hum along.[101] 2ff7e9595c
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