Why Some Things Should Just Be Left As An Original.

I remember in 1985, a slew full of singers (I would name them but that is too much, but you will here some of those names in this blog) made a song for Hunger for Africa. Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian produced it. 25 years later they did a remake. I listen to the song and I have to say………

……When you remake a song, make sure that it has an equal or greater value toward it.

See that is why I don’t like remake. While some people can do a great remake of a song (ie. Whitney Houston “I Will Always Love You” circa 1993), some people really just put a rope to the song and let it hang. I thought the We Are The World 2010 was okay but I mean this was a classic in 85. First of all, Quincy should know rule number one:

You have to remember 85 was full of a who’s who of legendary singer. Half of them are either in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Country Music Hall of Fame, or some kind of Hall of Fame. Well if I was in there with Quincy, I would have Sweet Chinned him for autotune. Come on Q, Jay already told you that in the Blueprint 3 and you still didn’t get the memo. I would have love to hear Lil Wayne singing. I would have laugh for the first 5 months, but still he did come there. T-PAIN, Snoop, Busta Rhymes, and AKON, well could you have just replaced them with others singer like ………..mmmm I am guessing Rob Thomas (future Hall of Famer…hello!), India Arie, Anthony Hamilton, Joel Madden, or even Gladys Knights. They even had Hillary Duff, the group Heart and Shakira. How come out of all the singers there was nothing but one country singer. Did anybody forget about the Dixie Chicks, Big and Rich, Toby Keith (Hey, he partied with rappers before). Okay the last problem was that Q did with a comtemporay Christian producer and you could feel the Christian feeling. This one just felt like it could be nominated for best song collab by rap and R&B artists.

Oh and one more thing. Funny that Dancehall and Reggae one up you with there own tribute to Haiti. R&B artists, here is a note. Start contributing for causes with originals, not remakes.