March 2010

In 1985 when the original “We are the World” was first released, my friends, co-workers, and I were big fans of the song. It ended up being a huge hit.

>
Earlier this year, when Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones decided to do a 25th anniversary remake of “We are the World”, I was curious as to who would be singing in the updated version. There were many artists that participated I was quite happy with. They included Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban, Celine Dion, and Fergie to name a few. However, I will say that I did NOT care for the rap and hip-hop singers toward the end of the song. I also thought Jamie Foxx did a terrible job on the introduction. For an actor, he could have delivered the scripted lines much better. Nevertheless, I did buy a copy of the song from iTunes.

>
Since then, there have been a number of impressive “We are the World” remakes by “amateurs”. The first one I saw out of the gates is the version by Tyler Ward and his group. Tyler’s version has a very nice look and even has a humorous bit at the end.  The audio quality for this YouTube video is quite good albeit a shortened version of the original’s 7-minute song.

>
The next “We are the World” remake that I learned about was the version by Lisa Lavie and her group that CNN reported on. This one tries very hard to give everyone a bit of spotlight time and goes the full 7 minutes unlike Tyler Ward’s shortened version.

>
As you can tell, I am a fan of this song and the creativity it has inspired on YouTube. If I find some really great remake versions of “We are the World”, I will add them to this post.