We Are The World 25 - 12 Years Ago

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

We Are the World 25 for Haiti - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How do we feel about this nowadays? I'm listening to it for the first time ever actually.

Well... The chorus is still good at least. It's not as bad as I'd always heard.

 

[ChanceToDance]

Eh, parts of it are alright but a lot of it is awful (putting a rap on WATW is questionable at the very least and what's up with the overly autotuned singers lmao). It's interesting that it's basically the only insight we have as to how the RedOne sessions may sound like but apart of that there isn't much to say about it. It's a cool tribute but the original is a lot better.

 

[DangerousGal91]

I always feel a bit iffy about rehashed charity songs, they're never as good as the original and feel like cash grabs that are passed off as "goodwill" (though Do They Know It's Christmas arguably got treated even worse in this regard, since it got rehashed twice. 💀 Just make a new song!). Of course they kept MJ on the then-new version for pure clout. Also lol, rap... That never works on these types of songs, it just sounds awkward. Peak "look at us, we are still hip and relevant" energy. Same with the obvious Auto-Tune. Notice how nobody talks about or plays this version anymore, lol.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Of course they kept MJ on the then-new version for pure clout.

I can respectfully disagree with nothing you said except for this. Katherine Jackson asked them explicitly to keep MJ on the song. And Janet sang opposite him as well. It was no clout involved.

There is actually a lot of heart involved in this project, it comes from a good place. It's corniness and mediocre music quality has nothing to do with greed really. Just remove the rap and the dated instrumentals and it could almost end up okay.