Charity singles are the songs specially recorded by musical artists to benefit charitable causes. Perhaps the best known are 1984’s Band Aid, which sang “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” about Ethiopian hunger, and 1985’s “We Are The World,” recorded on behalf of Africa. Critics have never warmed to the genre, but I surprised myself by growing attached to a number of them. Not only do they tend to have the hookiest of choruses, but there is also something particularly pleasurable about music that makes no effort whatsoever to be cool. In a cynical, highly marketed, autotuned, and media-managed music world, singers prepared to just turn up and belt out a chorus seem endearing. They have an appealing lack of glossiness, and even an artificial show of sincerity is more attractive than posed irony.

But there is one thing that is clear when you listen to charity singles. Most are bad. Very bad. Being bad was evidence that a single was thrown together to confront an emergency, with the participating artists typically lowering their usual standards. Bad was kind of the point; the rough production values demonstrated that no money was spent, much less wasted. In fact, the ones that were any good musically were usually unsuccessful.

There had been musical fundraisers before the 1980s. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and Leadbelly did a benefit show for California’s Dust Bowl refugees in 1940. Elvis did a 1961 benefit concert in Hawaii for the U.S.S. Arizona Pearl Harbor memorial and George Harrison did a 1971 concert for Bangladesh. But it was in the ‘80s that the charity single came into its own. Benefit songs sold philanthropy and Victorian values, raising funds for traditional causes such as Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, but in a style that appealed to youth-oriented broadcasting and made use of videos, which were then new.

Charity singles are never just about the money, though. They have an old-fashioned moral message and an idealistic take on the need for social change straight out of Dickens. These songs are statements—about who we think we are as a society, how we want to be seen, and which people in need we think we can “help.” “We Are the World”, we are reminded. “Do Something Now” for Christian Aid. “You’ll Never Walk Alone” for the Bradford Football Disaster. The songs themselves created a utopian sense of community, however artificial, between donors and an imagined community of worthy recipients.

There was a recipe for building the perfect 80s charity single. Take an eclectic group of musicians who shouldn’t really get along. Include individual voices that have standout lines (good options are Boy George, Bruce Springsteen, and Sting). One participant must look as if they are taking their part too seriously, and one person must look as if they are not taking their part seriously enough. And there should be a video in which microphones, leads, lyric sheets, and producers are visible, as well as a collective chorus shot including people who did not necessarily perform on the record.

Your group of singers should include someone old, someone new, someone with genuine credibility, someone surprising, and a puppet. The puppets from the British satire Spitting Image appeared in the videos for charity singles, including Genesis’ 1986 song raising awareness of Middle East policy, “Land of Confusion.” (The puppets also made their own spoof charity single in 1990).

The Muppets have had a good run in charity singles too, from the ‘80s to the present day. More recently their theme tune was re-recorded to raise money for a New Zealand cancer charity, and Kermit the Frog performed a duet of “Rainbow Connection” with Ed Sheeran for Red Nose Day, a song that the Muppets and their fans have used to raise charity funds and awareness since the 1980s.

To go with the self-consciously eclectic stars, ‘80s charity single videos were produced in a deliberately slipshod way to emphasize the time and labour donated by musicians, producers, and technicians. The urgent nature of production was made clear in wilfully unprofessional-looking videos, thrown together in a hurry. Viewers got to see the nuts and bolts of the recording process, often with a motley skeleton crew portrayed mucking around together. In fact, the more uncomfortable the style pairings and the less likely the performers to work together normally, the clearer their own charitable donation was. The eclecticism of performers also made it easier to market a charity single broadly.

Whether it’s the performers singing together, the consumers buying the records, or the imagined recipients, everyone was part of the same community, headed up by the Muppets and Boy George. We weren’t just buying a single, we were buying a moral community. At a time when there was no such thing as society and greed was good, charity singles reminded us that there was another way, not perfect of course, but a statement of intent.

The problem with this recipe was that it became too familiar; once the format was instantly recognizable, charity singles lost their sense of spontaneity, their heart—and their charity.

Since that ‘80s heyday, and up to the most recent wave of recordings, the most significant charity single releases have been corporate events for corporate-style charities attached to telethons like Red Nose Day, Children in Need, or Band Aid reboots. These events are not the spontaneous thrown-together responses to crisis, but professionally organized and carefully planned and executed. Recent charity singles have been linked to reality TV show brands like The X Factor and BBC Music, rather than being built from particular pop tribes. The X Factor finalists used to produce a charity single and music video before the final winner of the show was anointed. Making it through the live rounds to perform on the video was a badge of honour in itself. For The X Factor contestants, the charity single was a bridge into a professional music career. There is no awareness to be raised. There is no community to be built. There is a television event to be marketed.

Recently, the charity single has made a comeback as artists step away from the corporate event model to create moments of intensely shared feeling. Once again, some charity singles seem to be about community and finding common ground amidst the shock waves of terrorism, mass violence, and climate change. Portishead, for example, has dedicated its haunting new ABBA cover “SOS” to the memory of Jo Cox, Labour MP, who was shot dead in the run up to the Brexit referendum. Adele and Christina Aguilera both used recent performances to express their reactions to the shooting in Orlando, Florida that killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub.

Indeed, Orlando may be a turning point for the charity single. The multiple charity singles for the Pulse shooting victims have not only been good, but also sung by the right people.

After Orlando, a vigil was held in London’s ‘gay village’ on Old Compton Street in Soho, which was the scene of a violent hate crime in 1999 when 39 people were injured by a politically motivated nail bombing. The London Gay Men’s Chorus performed at the Orlando vigil, singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and the live performance captured a feeling of shared vulnerability and collective resilience. Their recording of a charity single marks the arrival of a transatlantic LGBTQ community. It will raise funds for both the Pulse Victims Fund and a British-based charity fighting hate crime.

The most striking example of what a charity single can do now is the recording of Bruce Bacharach’s “What the World Needs Now” by 60 Broadway stars to raise money for the LGBT Centre of Central Florida. “Broadway for Orlando” contains touches of the Band Aid template. It was recorded in one sitting and the recording studio is the focus of the video. We see shots of the mixing desk. And while some of the singing leaves a bit to be desired, this is not a re-enactment of the ‘80s cliché. Whoopie Goldberg and Sarah Jessica Parker might not compete vocally, but they understand the point of a good cameo. This record is an authentic outpouring by a community with deep-rooted connections to the recipients of funds raised.

This is the charity single at its best. The Orlando charity singers are singing for themselves, and singing resilience into their communities. United in a choir of voices, the Orlando singles find a way to give voice to victims of the unspeakable.

The post We Are the World. We Are the Charity Single. appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

For years, my nonprofit, Music Changing Lives, has offered youth in Southern California an hour a day in a professional studio—with industry standard technology—so they can learn to compose, mix, master, record, and produce their own music. We make this technology available at our headquarters at the Redlands Community Center and in other school sites and community centers throughout the Inland Empire. Our impact has grown quickly—we now offer a similar program to kids interested in art and design and we’re working to expand our programs in other communities from Los Angeles to Fresno and even Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

I started Music Changing Lives in 1998 because, not very long ago, I was an Inland Empire kid trying to make music that got noticed.

I was born and raised in Altadena, but my family moved to Moreno Valley when I was 14 years old, after I lost my cousin to gang violence. In our household, we did two things: truck driving (since my dad was a driver) and music. My older brother, a hip-hop artist known as Won-g, was a rapper and producer. By the age of 13, I was helping him and other musicians sell their music on the street.

I became a very successful street promoter. But I saw firsthand how hard it was to make a career as an independent artist—because there simply wasn’t the infrastructure needed to make and promote music.

I thought, there has to be a better way. So I began to sell our music to people lining up at record stores and retailers, and I did that so well the stores and retailers offered to carry our music. My family also built a recording studio in a downstairs bedroom of our home in Moreno Valley and opened it to local youth, including former gang members. The rule was that as long as you refrained from gang-banging and drugs, you could work with us. Many aspiring artists seized the opportunity; we had as many as 20 musicians under us at one time, at all hours of the day and night.

At my mother’s urging, I formalized our operation by creating a foundation called Music Changing Lives. I was making my own music, too, and in 2000, I released my first record, Verbal Biography, and donated 50 percent of what I made to the foundation. We also attracted sponsors and supporters that allowed us to become financially independent. The most crucial support may have come from Wal-Mart, which allowed us to sell the CDs made at Music Changing Lives in the front of their stores across Southern California.

We got so big that in 2008, I started looking for a building for Music Changing Lives. That search led me to Redlands, where I found what would be the new home for the organization. I met with the head of the community center, the mayor, and the police chief, whose support was the golden ticket I needed to launch Music Changing Lives and give youth a real opportunity to create music.

In 2009, they gave me a six-month trial to see if I could bring in kids; we only had three kids at first, but soon the studio was filled. The studio is a place where kids, 8 years of age and older, can come and work with our engineers to learn how to produce, mix, master, record, or track their own vocals.

Now in 2015, we serve more than 350 youth, have 40 part-time college staff members, operate in three community centers in Redlands, Fontana, and Moreno Valley, and work with several group homes in the area. We also established a partnership in 2012 with the Moreno Valley Unified School District, where we offer a robust afterschool program at two elementary schools and one high school for six months out of the year. The afterschool programs offers students tutoring, homework assistance, visual arts, dance and music lessons (including piano, strings, and the recorder), and music production, of course.

Our programs focus on keeping kids off the streets and focused on school. We work with students not only to give them a creative outlet, but also to improve their GPA, attendance, and overall school performance.

You can see youth come through our doors and make huge strides. Franklin, a student who came to Music Changing Lives in 2010 when he was a high school freshman (he auditioned the song “Love You Down” for me), has managed to complete one album and many other songs for an upcoming album. He’s learned live performance techniques and how to hold his pitch when singing – and he’s worked on giving interviews. “Before I did not like openly speaking with people about anything that pertained to my lifestyle,” he wrote, “now I humbly look forward to every opportunity that presents itself.” Now 21, he is now studying audio production at the Art Institute of California and is expected to graduate next month.

Today, I spend about 80 percent of my time working on Music Changing Lives, much of it seems to be fielding inquiries from other places that want us to work with them, like Perris, Los Angeles, and Fresno. Earlier this year I was invited by a Fresno county supervisor to speak about Music Changing Lives to their gang task force, and now we’re talking about bringing the program there to help reduce the number of people who are in gangs.

We’re also building an international presence. I started a division of the program at an orphanage in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. I’m Haitian-American, so after the earthquake I felt obligated to go to Haiti and provide relief supplies—and music, to bring a bit of joy to the children who had suffered so much loss. And after performing in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the Campus Party, an annual week-long, 24-hour-a-day technology festival, I was asked to try to bring Music Changing Lives there, and we are working out the logistics to make this possible.

I feel very fortunate to have seen so many lives changed and inspired, but I’d like to see more. I’d like to serve youth nationwide. Music Changing Lives reminds me over and over that music and art are the only languages that are universal. And it’s true that when you show someone genuine love, and provide the tools needed to realize his or her dreams, you get a genuine response back.

The post Give Kids the Tools to Make Music, Not Trouble appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.