TANYA’S ADVENT CALENDER OF FILTH
Welcome dear reader to the undisputed section of my Pandora’s Box of vileness. No-one, not even a fool who wished it could be Christmas everyday, can honestly say that Christmas records are any good. This may explain why people don’t really make them anymore (excepting the Sugababes excrable New Year which is about Christmas but appears to be date stamped a week later. Its a best before date I can only surmise). So in my not strictly accurate advent calender of filth I shall be cataloging some of the horrors which have been performed in the name of Baby Jesus.
1: BAND AID: Do They Know Its Christmas
That’s Band Aid as in a BAND put together exclusively to perform a record with the express purpose of raising AID money for African famine relief. As opposed to the American word for plaster. The plaster reference must be to the state that everyone was in when they agreed to be in this toss – absolutely plastered. Not withstanding that the single is supposed to feature the great and the good of British pop circa 1984 (Marilyn?) – out of such noted songwriters the best they could do is Midge Ure and Bob Geldof.
Remember. Geldof does not like Mondays. Ure wrote Vienna – the only paedophillic paean for a boys choir which has ever lurched past the censors.
Anyway, this pissed bunch of popsters want to raise money to save the starving in Africa. Perhaps save their careers as well, but it was at least a well meaning event. They could all have dipped into their pop star pockets and given away much of their personal wealth (10p from Marilyn). Instead they decided to sing a song written by the musical equivalent of Abbott and Costello, and then belch it loudly over Top Shop stereos for the rest of eternity. It would be laughable if it was not so atrocious.
The song is littered with lyrical mishaps, but they tried to craft a loving song which compares and contrasts our relative wealth with the poverty and famine in Africa. They did this by getting Paul Young to screech:
“Well tonight thank God its them, instead of you”
Perhaps on the page it worked. Perhaps on the page it really did conjure up proper reflection on the fickle finger of fate which dealt Bono such a lucky hand (hold on, its in comparison) and Femi Kute such poor fans. On record it sound like the fattest western, gloating laugh going “ho ho bloody ho – you did something wrong in a past life”. Given the age of many of the starving kids I can only assume they bought Nillson records in their previous incarnation.
Oh, and Midge – there will be snow in Africa this Christmastime. If only he had consulted with Toto, who could have told him about the glacial peaks of Kilamanjaro. Mind you, they were too busy touching the non-existant rains…
Band Aid is shit, they could have done with one over their collective mouths. Do They Know Its Christmas Time? Well if you got this for Christmas you would be forgiven for not knowing either.