Band Aid 30 - Do They Know It's Christmas

The third remake of the 1984 charity single Do They Know It's Christmas debuted on British television last night. Via the Guardian:

The more cynical might suggest that in the age of twitchforkings and twitterstorms, when it sometimes seems that no pop cultural event can pass without someone somewhere forensically examining it in the hope of find something they can take offence at, might account for the fact that the song’s lyrics have been rewritten, not merely to accommodate the Ebola epidemic but also to remove the kind of lyrics that people might describe as problematic: “tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” is gone. The generalisation that nothing ever grows in Africa has likewise vanished. Meanwhile, anyone keen to sound the clanging chimes of doom for pop music – or at the very least, looking for evidence of its waning grip on teenagers’ imaginations – might note that three of the vocalists aren’t actually musicians. They are “internet personalities” Zoe “Zoella” Sugg, her brother Joe “Thatcherjoe” Sugg and Alfie Deyes, the last justly famous as joint holder of the world record for the most number of bangles put on by two people in 30 seconds.

The original version is one of the top twenty greatest selling singles in history. The 1989 version (produced by disco kingpins Stock, Aitken & Waterman) and the 2004 version both reached #1 on the British pop chart.