It’s been 40 years since Bob Geldof and Midge Ure created a supergroup of music stars to record an epic charity single.
Do They Know It’s Christmas? went on to sell over two million copies worldwide, raising more than $24 million for anti-famine efforts in Ethiopia.
Since then, the charity has released Band Aid II and a new version of the single with contemporary artists to commemorate the 20th, 30th, and now 40th anniversaries of the original.
Band Aid hasn’t been without its controversies over the years, facing claims of self-righteousness, patronising lyrics, colonial tropes and white savourism.
Meanwhile, the latest remix of the first three versions, Band Aid 40, has released and Ed Sheeran has said he did not give permission for his 2014 vocals to be reused and wouldn’t have consented anyway.
Now Queen drummer Roger Taylor, who performed on the 1984 original, has spoken out on the matter, slamming Band Aid’s critics.
Posting on Instagram, the 75-year-old wrote: “Proud to be a part of this. It’s probably one of the greatest moments in rock ’n’ roll history actually having an effect on the world! How anyone can criticise such a magnificent and charitable project, which continues to save so many lives from famine is beyond comprehension. They need their heads examined and their values readjusted.”
Meanwhile, Bob Geldof defended the song in The Conversation by writing: “This little pop song has kept hundreds of thousands if not millions of people alive,” he wrote. In fact, just today Band Aid has given hundreds of thousands of pounds to help those running from the mass slaughter in Sudan and enough cash to feed a further 8,000 children in the same affected areas of Ethiopia as 1984. Those exhausted women who weren’t raped and killed and their panicked children and any male over 10 who survived the massacres and those 8,000 Tigrayan children will sleep safer, warmer and cared for tonight because of that miraculous little record. We wish that it were other but it isn’t. ‘Colonial tropes’, my arse.”