Hope For Haiti: I watched it so you didn't have to
"Hold up, hold up, hold up," shouted Wyclef Jean five minutes before the end of the Hope For Haiti Now telethon on Friday night. "Enough of the moping, let's rebuild Haiti now!"
If only he'd thought about that message two hours earlier, we'd have been spared some of the music industry's most recognisable names putting on their "serious face" and singing their most po-faced, turgid songs at a funereal pace. If it wasn't Shakira murdering I'll Stand By You, it was Justin Timberlake playing a drowsy version Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah that lasted seven whole years.
Surely the point of these fund-raisers is that the juxtaposition between great, uplifting music and the horriffic human tragedy compels us to pick up the phone and do something. If the stars just sit there sobbing into their mineral water, then the viewers at home will just feel miserable and helpless. (I could be wrong about this, of course, because the televent has raised an encouragingly robust $57m so far).
The only person who seemed to have realised this was Madonna, who judged the mood perfectly with an acoustic choral version of Like A Prayer.
Madonna - Like A Prayer (Hope For Haiti Now)
If you have the stomach to endure the rest of the performances (U2 and Rihanna is particularly bad), there's a helpful Youtube playlist here.
And you should definitely donate to the relief effort if you can. The Disasters Emergency Committee page is a good place to start.
If only he'd thought about that message two hours earlier, we'd have been spared some of the music industry's most recognisable names putting on their "serious face" and singing their most po-faced, turgid songs at a funereal pace. If it wasn't Shakira murdering I'll Stand By You, it was Justin Timberlake playing a drowsy version Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah that lasted seven whole years.
Surely the point of these fund-raisers is that the juxtaposition between great, uplifting music and the horriffic human tragedy compels us to pick up the phone and do something. If the stars just sit there sobbing into their mineral water, then the viewers at home will just feel miserable and helpless. (I could be wrong about this, of course, because the televent has raised an encouragingly robust $57m so far).
The only person who seemed to have realised this was Madonna, who judged the mood perfectly with an acoustic choral version of Like A Prayer.
If you have the stomach to endure the rest of the performances (U2 and Rihanna is particularly bad), there's a helpful Youtube playlist here.
And you should definitely donate to the relief effort if you can. The Disasters Emergency Committee page is a good place to start.
posted by mrdiscopop at 1:34 PM
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