Who Bodied Their Verse On "We Are The World"??

I hate Bob Dylan, but him and Stevie Wonder alone raise the bar.

(for the assertion, I mean, not the performance)

many Alex in NYC arguments have been broken down by his undeniable love and admiration for Miss Dionne Warwick

ha yeah Bob Dylan, oops

Alex, walk on by.

Is We Are The Pizza a real thing?

Surprised no one's reppin' for Steve Perry, who plainly got inspired by the company; or Daryl Hall.

Okay, let's go through them, then, shall we?

Lionel Richie - Crap.
Stevie Wonder - Was great at one point but then became crap.
Paul Simon - See Stevie Wonder.
Kenny Rogers - Oh please. COMPLETE crap.
James Ingram - Fine, but hardly a groundbreaker.
Tina Turner - Okay, yes -- she's a huge talent.
Billy Joel - Crappy craphound of the crappiest order.
Michael Jackson - Do you really need me to go into detail here?
Diana Ross - Big talent dwarfed by massive ego.
Dionne Warwick - Nice voice, dwarfed by insane devotion to psychic friends.
Willie Nelson - Good guy, nice voice, dope-advocate.
Al Jarreau - Whatever.
Bruce Springsteen - Slavishly overrated, but a nice guy.
Kenny Loggins - Champion of shite, redeemed only by the title song to "Caddyshack."
Steve Perry - Shrill airhorn of a voice redeemed only by "Separate Ways."
Daryl Hall - Legitimately huge talent.
Huey Lewis - Legitimately huge embarassment.
Cyndi Lauper - Talented, but irritating.
Kim Carnes - A damp fart.
Bob Dylan - Wheezing, oversung gasbag of washed-uppedness.
Ray Charles - Way too talented to be sharing a studio with the rest of this gang.

Willie Nelson - Good guy, nice voice, dope-advocate.

If Willie needs an obit, here it is.

Alex in NYC Non-OTM

Al Jarreau - Whatever.
ahahaha

http://blog.cleveland.com/ent_impact_music/2008/02/medium_jarreau.jpeg

BIlly Joel = Zach Galifianakis

Cyndi's dancing is cute. Bruce is like John Travolta in a bad movie. Kenny Roger ain't so bad imo.

but the first MJ chorus is the best thing happening here.

Stevie Wonder announced at 1 am that he would like to substitute the "sha-lum sha-lin-gay" sound for a line in Swahili.[16][17] At this point, Waylon Jennings left the recording studio and never returned; he allegedly felt that no "good ole boy" ever sang in Swahili.[16][17] A heated debate ensued, in which Geldof revealed that Ethiopians do not speak Swahili.[16] Michael Jackson also disagreed with using a Swahili line, choosing to stick with the the "sha-lum sha-lin-gay" sound, which, after being sung a few times, ran into opposition as well.[16] The participants eventually decided to sing something meaningful in English.[16] They chose to sing the new line "One world, Our children", which most of the participants enjoyed, apart from Tina Turner, who liked "sha-lum sha-lin-gay" better.[16]

it's mj vs ray for me. mj is so technically sound, immaculate phrasing. restrained and subdued for him, too, which is nice to hear. you can tell he mapped out every single syllable though, whereas ray seems--SEEMS--to be winging it, and that bit of emotion fits the song better than mj's approach.
also thought tina, willia, dionne, and stevie killed it.

Ray Charles sold this one

I forgot I had "Future Days" playing while I was listening to this

Diana Ross - Big talent dwarfed by massive ego.

Mr. In NYC, with love I say to you that no fan of Killing Joke is in a position to claim that the presence of a massive ego has any mitigating effect on said person's talent.

Moreover, if Alex can point out how her "massive ego" affects her WATW performance, I'd like to read it.

Because absolutely everything about "We Are The World" sucks a massive bag of greasy cocks, that's why.

Jaz (since JOhn invoked him) may indeed have an outsized ego (though he's quite humble compared to La Ross), but at least he's ENTERTAININGLY INSANE at the same time (plus, he rocks).

http://www.gtdtimes.com/files/2009/01/surprise.jpg

Glad we settled that.

Alex, you forgot Jeffrey Osborne, who's second to last.

btw Jones' decision to pair Dionne Warwick's plummy diction against Willie's behind-the-beat phrasing is the kind of instinct you can't buy.

Most underrated duo trading off lines segment at about the 2:25 mark: Daryl Hall then Steve Perry.
Otherwise mostly good voices giving good performances: Ray, MJ, Stevie, James Ingram, Cyndi Lauper and Willie stand out.
There was a making of "We Are the World" video that came out at the time which shows Stevie Wonder sitting at a piano trying to get Bob Dylan to sound like the Dylan of the mid-60's. A priceless clip that I've not been able to find on Youtube, so if anyone has a link, please pass along.

I prefer "We Fuck the World", which was sung by those puppets back in like 2000

Ok...several things

1. alex's statement about the talent is wayyyyyyyyyyy wrong.
2. the song is so goddamned corny. it sounds like it came out of a song vending machine, almost as bad as "Power of the Dream".
3. the fact that it was for charity redeems it. musically though...why do these types of songs have to sound so ridiculously overwrought?
4. thank god this didn't have the LOL factor of Will Smith rapping a la "Voices that Care" in 1991.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeGVObZgVbs

not much of a satire there. too obvious.

Obviousness was always part of Culturcide's charm.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8o8Knf_DkCY&hl=en&fs=1&";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8o8Knf_DkCY&hl=en&fs=1&"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Love the bad English...

ok I did that wrong

Daryl Hall - Legitimately huge talent.

o_O of all the people on the list this is the one you choose to lionize O_o

For the record, I prefer Canada's b-side.

Kenny Rogers - Oh please. COMPLETE crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZYcqlEZxGQ

I love Alex in NYC's "let's go through them" post although I'm stunned he was aware of the existence of James Ingram and wonder how he knows Springsteen's a nice guy. Also, I agree with his assessment of Al Jarreau but "Wheezing, oversung gasbag" and maybe even "washed-uppedness" characterizes Dylan from the very beginning of his career (a positive in my book).

And what's with all the "yay subtlety" cheerleading? What, did y'all really want the Bruce of Nebraska? One of the things that makes "We Are The World" such great pop music is its mixture of subtlety and OTTness, the way it creates an illusion of a complete spectrum of pop vocalizing.

Presented with such a buffet, though, I have no clue where to park my plate. Lionel Richie's marvelous opener seems found in amber. But Steve Perry is certainly the most surprising. Too bad "the choir/chorus" isn't an option.

the concept of a choir should be erased from human consciousness.

Do you like black music then?

congrats on the most wtf question i've ever been asked on ilx

See, this is why I don't live in Naperville.

i don't care if your choir is black, white, purple

I was trying to pair it with your wtf remark.

(xxpost)

nor do I but I don't see what that has to do with anything
xxxxp

Well, let me be clearer: using WATW's choir to indict all choirs is like saying you hate synthesizers because of "My Humps."

true but i do hate all choirs regardless. next i will tell you how i hate peanut butter and jelly so you can reach your wtf'd quota for the month.

ok gregorian shit is alright

true but i do hate all choirs regardless. next i will tell you how i hate peanut butter and jelly so you can reach your wtf'd quota for the month.

Do you the peanut industry?

For the record, I prefer Canada's b-side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJN3u1wAWIk

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2015/01/27/we-are-the-world-30th-anniversary/22395455/

My favorite thing about this is from Huey Lewis on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me:

SALIE: I have to ask you about something that I loved when I was a teenager, "We are the World."

LEWIS: Right.

SALIE: Can you talk about that day? I mean were you really like - were you guys standing at craft services with, you know, like Bruce Springsteen is on your right and Diana Ross is on your left.

LEWIS: Exactly.

SALIE: What was it like?

LEWIS: It was amazing. It was amazing. I mean, I'm talking to Willie Nelson about golf and Bob Dylan over here says are you guys talking about golf?

He said yeah. And Willie said, yeah, we put the clubs on the bus. And Bob says, man, that's outrageous. He says that's outrageous. I said no, Bob, "Nashville Skyline" was outrageous. This is just golf.

SALIE: In that room, were there like cool kids and not cool kids?

LEWIS: No, but Paul Simon said - it's probably not nice to say. I don't know. Paul Simon said if a bomb drops on this place, John Denver is back on top.

lol

i legit enjoy this record, and feel a strong need to listen/watch from time to time

the more i do so, the more i appreciate michael jackson's solo chorus

Bruce really does bomb this, doesn't he? Kenny Loggins sounds great by comparison.

Michael Jackson	0

Wait, what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_tZUg8onNg

How in the ever loving fuck did Ray Charles not walk this?????

He etc

idk if this is a poll u wanna "win" necessarily

"we are the world" is something that sounds like a generic anthem until you realize how profoundly fucking weird it is

i think i must have heard it a hundred times before the bizarreness of the line "as god has shown us, by turning stones to bread" finally sunk in

also

"when you're down and out, and there seems no hope at all/BUT IF YOU JUST BELIEVE, THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN FALL"

which, in the context of what the song is meant to be about and who it's meant to be addressing, is just incredibly funny and insane

clap your hands if you believe you're not starving!

I like Greil Marcus' response "When you're done and out" ("The Ethiopians are 'down and out'?").

what does it mean to body a verse?

“If you just believe, there’s no way we can fall.” Yep, that’s all it takes to end famine in Ethiopia, just believing.

In one of the "making of" videos IIRC, there's a moment with A. Jarreau recording his part and he's so not ale to follow the rhythm you have to wonder how that's possible for a "professional" singer (especially after such a long career) !

He was a jazz guy, it was him being avant garde

I like Greil Marcus' response "When you're done and out" ("The Ethiopians are 'down and out'?").

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, December 16, 2019 4:52 AM (two days ago)

marcus also pointed out how weird it is that a song written by two guys who'd done pepsi commercials centers on the line "there's a choice we're making," which sounds like an unconscious echo of pepsi's then-current slogan "the choice of a new generation"

xpost

killed their verse in outdated rap slang

It's time: Who Bodied Their Verse On "Tears Are Not Enough"??