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

Every time you diss the concept of a choir, someone somewhere is dying.

choirs are awesome. bland generic triad arrangements aren't.

My vote:

Street Talk [Columbia, 1985]
The head Journeyman's USA for Africa cameos were so discreetly intense and discreetly tossed off they made me wonder what I'd been missing. Now I know--musical gastroenteritis. Pat Boone didn't understand, so why should Steve Perry--oversinging signifies not soul and inspiration but will and desperation. Upped a notch for good intentions, and just in case Sam Cooke has finally taught him a lesson. C

ray charles is amazing on this song -- the way he comes charging in at the end is one of those 'stand up and cheer' moments, like he's just arrived to bring some genuine feeling and warmth and redeem the whole event. which he pretty much does. it's worth listening to the whole thing every time just to get to his part.

it's a pretty terrible song (though "there comes a time, when we heed a certain call" is a memorably weird opening line), but there's some great performances on it. cyndi is wonderful. dylan's cameo is great because he obviously doesn't give a shit about what he's singing and sings it exactly the way you'd expect him to -- "just yoooooo and meeeeee!"

stevie's last line kills it imo, usually the first part i remember when i think of the song
we are THAA^ ones who make a brighter day-ey so let's! start! GIVn! totally stevie but unlike any way he'd sung before (that i know of)
daryl hall doesn't seem to get the volume he wanted (nyuk)
james ingram's last part takes the desperation prize i think, i like steve perry's part

Alex, you forgot Jeffrey Osborne, who's second to last
that's ingram but watching the video there's jeffrey! (would have muuurked)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

willie does a pretty good job with his weirdo behind the beat phrasing

this should be Willie's main artist entry at AMG or something

god *paul simon* was on this?? my mind had blanked that out totally. mind you i suppose this was in his not selling any records phase. NO WAY he'd have doen this after GRACELAND. wasn't prince asked but he said no or something?

apparently Prince's planned line was so mindblowing that he couldn't even think of it in his own head without suffering pain so he skipped it

Damn you, DJ Koze cover version, for not being on YouTube. (Ray in a walk, duh.)

Surprised no one's posted Christgau's essay: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/rock/song-85.php

otm:

Talent and tradition make a lot of the difference. It's no fault of Bob Geldof, who did his damnedest to enlist bigger and better (and non-Brit) names in the project, but not only can't Band Aid's Bowie and McCartney and Sting compete with Michael and Lionel and Bruce as box office or with Dylan and Smokey and Brother Ray as history, they can't compete with such lesser lights as Steve Perry and James Ingram and Dionne Warwick as vocal technicians. Whatever compromises multiplatinum or Vegas or middle age have entailed, whatever odium attaches to Diana Ross's vanity or Steve Perry's group, however suspect the presence of Michael's siblings or Huey's News or Quincy's protégé or Ken Kragen's clients, "We Are the World" achieves a genuinely phenomenal concentration of voices. Almost every one of the veterans still calls up extraordinary work on occasion, and while too many of the new guys habitually confuse meaning with technique, the technique they favor is designed to transmit whatever meaning comes near it and is made for this kind of spiritual uplift.

Cue Brit "WTF?!" blitzkrieg.

nah they were ripping into their own on the other thread. both great songs

you know, i actually like this song.

up:
dionne warwick
willie nelson
steve perry
ray charles

down:
billy joel
al jarreau
kim carnes (alex sez it best: "a damp fart")

way down:
bruce springsteen (it's like he thought he had to singlehandedly hold up the RAWK part of the proceedings by over-emoting x1000)

i like how the backing track sort of downshifts into "off the wall" mode when michael takes his solo chorus

i would pay for a dionne warwick/willie nelson duet album

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.

may be some truth in this.

ray charles owns this song but i'll give it to dionne for diversity's sake.

kenny rogers's facial expressions easily the worst part of the video.

my theory about why michael is alone in the studio on his chorus: he probably refused to record in the same circumstances, being a perfectionist, wanting many extra takes for his few lines, etc. and since he produced the track, he could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

actually down on billy joel, too. he makes his line sound icky and lascivious.

oh i already got billy joel. i'll stop posting now.

kenny rogers's facial expressions easily the worst part of the video.

worse than Bruce's?

Isn't the story of Michael's verse that it was supposed to be Prince's but he didn't show up so Michael had to sub?

"I am also the world/ I am also the children . . ."

Went for Willie, if only because "as God has shown us by turning stone to bread" is one of the great "WTF?" lyrics.

so I've been curious, have there been any other lesser known 'FIGHT FOR THIS CAUSE' type anthems with pop superstars (besides these two and Voices That Care) that like....were either hilariously bad or didn't really do that well?

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

Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Edward Markey led an official protest over every New England state being excluded from Hands Across America. Political leaders in the south and Florida additionally weighed in against the route that was chosen to span the continental United States. Various protests broke out in the Upper Midwest, notably Minneapolis and Milwaukee, as well as northwestern cities such as Portland and Seattle. In Hawaii actor Tom Selleck and Sen. Daniel Inouye led a counter Hands Across Hawaii program that was held to remind mainlanders that "Hawaiians are Americans, Too!"

"broke out"

I have no memory of this event.

lol @ Baltimore, Maryland (with R2-D2 and Emmanuel Lewis.) The first break in the chain west of New York was reported to be in Maryland due to R2D2 not having hands.

I bet they were "grassroots campaigns" like these anti-health care protests...

There were undoubtedly many breaks in the chain, but enough people participated to form an unbroken chain across the country if the path had been a straight line.

My god, my 6th grade awards night ceremony concluded with all of us joining hands and singing "Hands Across America." The summer of '86 was the high point of Reaganmania.

watching the video, kept wondering about the intense diplomatic negotiations behind who got to sing what, with whom, and how many lines they got to sing. also the fact that this many artists on the top 40 charts could actually sing?

anyway, tina turner. i love tina turner. i got this on cassette when it came out but can't remember any of the other songs

hah, i remember the 'hands across america' thing too. i think they gave out t-shirts for it? i was probably in 3rd grade. unaffected by reaganmania due to my dad brainwashing me with the gift of a 'ronald reagan coloring book' (democratic propaganda sarcastically showing how reagan was screwing up the country, only i didn't know that, i colored in it & believed everything they said)

this song came out when i was 3 and i've managed to go pretty much my entire life without paying any close attention to it. listening to it now, i dunno who to vote for. maybe steve perry, maybe mj, maybe ray.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

who voted for springsteen?!?!

what the hell

how did huey lewis get 3 more votes than michael jackson?

Michael Jackson doesn't do much worth voting for on the track?

Most underrated duo trading off lines segment at about the 2:25 mark: Daryl Hall then Steve Perry.

^^^^ so great

This is my favorite thread title on ILM.

Said thread title has made it impossible to find.

I've never seen "body" used as a verb...

kinda feel like huey lewis sort of went beyond himself in this song, like the dude had no business being there, but had that 1984 chutzpah to just fuckin do it, u know?

And That's Why I Voted For Huey Lewis

I've never seen "body" used as a verb...

I take it you don't listen to much rap music

I've never seen "body" used as a verb...I take it you don't listen to much rap music
― a man is only a guy (Shakey Mo Collier)

Spot on, old chap! While I have you, do you have any Grey Poupon?

this is gangsta musik if u can't hang u a herb imo

poor kim carnes :'(

If you watch the Carnes-Lewis-Lauper clip when they all sing STAND TOGETHER AS ONE it's pretty obvious that Cyndi and Huey fulfilled their silent vow to outsing and outbody Carnes.