The We Are the World Remake - Such a Pretty Mess

In 1985, Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie created a beautiful song, We Are The World to benefit the people of Africa. The money went to An organization called the United Support Of Artists For Africa. That was a multi-platinum album. Friday night, we heard the new version of his song, and to me it was a huge disappointment. The beginning of the song was very good. The middle was horrendous!

The part where everyone was singing the chorus. Some artists were improvising, and to me it did not sound good at all. It did not sound 'together'. It was nothing like the original song. The ending, however was much better, but not as good as the beginning. The part that I was waiting for, where Michael and Janet were supposed to sing together, what was up with that? They show footage of Michael, and Janet, I didn't hear her a single note she sang. I don't think her heart was totally in it, but who could blame her, losing her brother? I could see the pain in her eyes.

Anyway, It was as if Michael was singing by himself. We all know that Janet can sing! We know what she sounds like. I was hoping to experience a tiny bit like when Natale Cole sang Unforgettable with her father. Janet did better, when she sang the duet Scream with Michael on the MTV Video Music Awards, this year. You could tell she was hurting there, too, but she had more fire in that performance.

Just to make sure that I heard correctly, I went to the Web site wearetheworldfoundation.org to hear it again, and to my surprise, guess what? They did not show the entire video on television Friday night! it seemed they showed a portion of the beginning, the horrible middle part and the end. Parts we did not see were Toni Braxton singing, and a whole lot of other artists. They even had Michael Jackson singing a second time.

Why did they leave that part out?! Whoever edited it for television did a bad job. They should have kept most of the beginning of the song in, and cut out the really bad part where people were improvising. The end, sounded more together, except for the rapping part. The rapping was a nice touch, but overdone. It should have been one rapper instead of a group. Overall, if I were to give the song a grade, it would be a B- and almost headed down to a C performance. I know that the song is for a good cause, helping Haiti, but in my opinion, this effort was just something thrown together. The original was much better.