Band Aid 30

I should point out that I am a great fan of Bob Geldof. Of all the punk musicians from my childhood, he has managed to retain his blatant disregard for authority. By comparison, Malcolm McLaren has become a member of the music establishment - the ex-punk. I admire him for that, for his passion, for his commitment. His "I think they are talking bollocks" response to the TV interviewer was superbly anti-authoritarian.

I should also say that the original idea of Live Aid and the original Band Aid single was brilliant, important and effective. It raised a lot of money, but more, it raised awareness of the problems to a level that could not have been achieved in any other way.

The problem with Band Aid 30 is that it is no longer the right way to do this. All of the same criticism can be leveled at the Children in Need single, and many other charity singles.I wonder if they are driven by the performers need to Do Something than anything else, and they give of their skills and talents, because that is what they do. In the case of the original single and event, by giving of their time they raised more than they could by just giving of their money.

The problem is that in the last 30 years, a lot has changed. Awareness of issues and their impact is achieved in a range of different ways - we have the internet, social media, news web sites, all of which are better at raising awareness of issues like Ebola than producing a record. In fact, the DEC has been using these various means to raise the awareness of the public. I think we all know it is an issue, a problem, something that needs help.

I think there are issues that many people are not aware of - the need for a whole lot of resources in Africa to help fight the disease, control its spread, prevent it becoming more of a problem. We know ABOUT Ebola, but not necessarily what the need is. But there are better ways of raising the awareness of the need than a record.

30 years ago, the way we engaged with music was very different. A record that made it to the top of the charts was important, significant, it would get a lot of plays, because there was very little differentiation in terms of radio stations, most people who listened to pop radio would get to hear it.

Today is very different. Today, most people download music that they want - more and more on services like Spotify - rather than buying physical items. It tends to mean that the listening is rather more ephemeral - listen once and probably forget. An individual song is not that relevant, not that significant.

We are also in a world where we can access many thousands of internet radio stations, and I can select them based on the type of music I want to listen to. I did a search for stations playing Christmas music, and found a list of 70 stations just for this one specific theme. I can find stations playing whatever style I like, and it is easy to find ones that don't play chart music (I normally listen to 6 music, which doesn't play much that is in the charts, and I don't expect to head the Band Aid song on it). There is also a whole lot more television - available 24/7 - so we tend to listen to music we want to hear, not just what others want us to hear. And this is not to mention services like Pandora radio, and the Spotify equivalent, which allow you to generate a "radio" station based on the sort of music you listen to.

It all means that the world in which this song is released is completely different to the one in which the original band Aid song was released. To my mind, releasing a song is not the way to raise awareness today, because today it doesn't work.

So much as I love Bob Geldof, I cannot encourage people to buy the song. I would encourage people to make a donation to Ebola work if that is something that you consider to be important and worth supporting. It is a worthy cause, because we need to do something about the spread of this disease - it is killing thousands, and there is a very high fatality rate.

//The money raised could be raised in other ways.