MidKent College's Music Performance students from the Medway Campus are set to record studio covers of the classic charity singles, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' (Band Aid, 1984) and 'We Are The World' (USA For Africa, 1985) for a course assignment. Level 3 Music Performance student, Michael Mikey Brennan explains further information about the project below.
I am delighted to announce that in December I will be participating alongside my fellow Level 3 Music Performance course vocalists from MidKent College in a re-recording of two of my favourite charity songs; 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' by Band Aid and 'We Are The World' by USA For Africa. However, that being said, I didn't actually want to take part in re-recording of these songs to being with and if it was up to me, I probably wouldn't, unfortunately for me though, I have no choice in the matter as this is an assignment task set by my course tutor, Kennie for our course unit, 'Session Musician', which, like every unit, I want to achieve a Distinction on - equilvant to an A grade -, and obviously the only way I can only get that Distinction is by taking part in this unit, otherwise I'll get unclassified on it, meaning that I won't pass the unit due to not taking part in the main task project - the re-recording of two charity singles - and therefore will not pass the course and won't qualify for university; in other words, I'll be screwed and my future as a professional vocalist will go down the drain without a Level 3 music qualification or a university degree.
The reason why I didn't initially want to to re-cover these songs is not because I dislike them or anything, because I don't dislike them, in fact, I love them, as I said they are two of my favourite charity songs and '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' is probably my second favourite Christmas song ('
Wonderful Christmastime' by
Paul McCartney being my all time favourite), I remember singing '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' as a child every single year when the holiday season came around, my parents used to play it around the house all the time and I remember hearing it on the radio (my local radio stations,
Heart Kent and
Kmfm) throughout the holidays every year as well. The reason is because to me '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' and '
We Are The World', are masterpieces, absolute classics, beautifully arranged and very well structured and produced; in simpler terms, I didn't want to ruin these masterpieces. Not to mention these songs are incredibly unique and I don't think anyone could ever re-create something that could even come close to comparing to these classics, and not just in terms of covering but also in the sense of writing something from the inspiration of these two songs; as a matter of fact,
'Another Bower Grove Christmas' was inspired by '
Do They Know It's Christmas?', which may not come across as a surprise giving the fact that they are both Christmas charity songs (by the way, to those of you who may be unaware, I didn't write '
Another Bower Grove Christmas',
Mr. Starks did). Although in my opinion
'Another Bower Grove Christmas' is a masterpiece and a very well written track, it doesn't come near to comparing towards a classic like '
Do They Know It's Christmas?', mind you though, '
Another Bower Grove Christmas' wasn't entirely influenced by '
Do They Know It's Christmas?', it was merely just inspired by it in the sense of creating a Christmas charity single, '
Another Bower Grove Christmas' is its own special unique song; in other words, you can't compare it to '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' as they are both two different songs entirely, as far as comparisons to the two songs go, they are only similar due to both being Christmas charity songs, otherwise they are nothing alike whatsoever. I must be honest, I'm not a fan of the cover versions of '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' and '
We Are The World', though I appreciate them of course, as they were all recorded for a good cause and as far as I'm concerned anything that's made for charity is okay in my book, but their just not my cup of tea, despite that the covers in question -
"Artists For Haiti: We Are The World (2010)" and
"Band Aid 30: Do They Know It's Christmas? (2014)" - feature some artists who I admire a lot and some who I am influenced and inspired by. I will say one positive thing about the
Artists For Haiti version of '
We Are The World' though, at least they kept
Michael Jackson's parts in, thus not completely ruining the masterpiece.
However, don't get me wrong, not meaning to contradict myself, but I still rest my case when I say that I am delighted, and honoured to be participating in this project and re-recording these two amazing songs, because I am delighted and honoured; in fact, I am very excited, especially since a lot of my heroes featured in these songs, so I am absolutely honoured to be covering and singing the famous lyrics once sung by the artists who I worship and adore; especially
Michael Jackson, my favourite artist of all time and biggest influence and greatest inspiration, whose lines I will be singing in '
We Are The World' (in fact, this was agreement made by me and Kennie; essentially I agreed that I would take part in this project on the condition that I get to sing
Michael Jackson's lines, though of course, I would have had to take part in it regardless, as I said, it's the only way I can pass the course and qualify for university, there's no other way of succeeding in this aspect of the course without taking part in this project and therefore there is no other way of getting into university without this unit qualification). In addition, in '
We Are The World' I will also be singing
Bruce Springsteen's lines and the opening lines, originally sung by
Lionel Richie (co-writer, alongside
Michael Jackson of '
We Are The World') and in '
Do They Know It's Christmas?' I will be singing the opening lines, originally sung by
Paul Young, as well as the lines originally portrayed by
Simon Le Bon and
Sting. The covers will be produced by the amazing,
ElijahPaul and we will be singing to backing tracks, because unfortunately we are unable to get any musicians to play for us, as all the musicians on the course are currently working on rehearsing material for the college pantomime,
Cinderella (which you can buy tickets for
here). I am hoping to showcase the recordings on social media once they are done and there is the possibility that I may be able to distribute them for downloading and streaming (on iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer etc.), but I'm afraid I can't make any promises as I am currently having issues with distributing covers (which is one of the main reasons why my recent live EP is not available on any downloading and streaming platforms, apart from
Bandcamp at the moment), hopefully I'll fix the problem at some point and will be able to distribute these two upcoming covers, but at the moment due to being tied up with college work I am unable to look into the problem and fix it. However, regardless of whether I am able to distribute them or not I will showcase them one way or another.
At this point I have no idea when I'll be able to share the recordings, as it will depend when in December we record them and when we finish and how long it takes for Elijah for edit and master them, but I'm going to assume January. Please stay tuned for further information.
- Michael Mikey Brennan, MidKent College, Level 3 Music Performance Year 2 Student
Michael Jackson is my idol, my hero, my greatest inspiration, he means more to me than any amount of words could ever explain, to me he's the absolute best, the greatest entertainer of all time; he was practically a God to me. He's the reason I sing, the reason I perform and the reason I make music today. I owe everything to him; if it wasn't for him I probably wouldn't be on stage doing what I do today. As one of his biggest fans nothing hurts more than seeing all these disgusting rumours about him spread. It's all so incredibly painful and upsetting, I wish all these accusers, all these haters and all these journalists would fuck off spreading all this bullshit and just let him rest! God, with the amount of press and journalists (that won't fuck off and get off his back) on his case almost 24-7, it's no wonder why he wrote songs like "Leave Me Alone", "They Don't Care About Us" and "Scream"; think how frustrating all this would have been for him, the poor guy. Can't everyone just take a hint? MJ was accused and found innocent three bloody times in a row (if he was found innocent before he's going to be found innocent again, nothing will change), he was not, I repeat not, a god damn peadophile! True; I may have not known him personally or met him (although I really wish I did, that would have made my entire life complete) but I know for a fact that he was not a peadophile, he was, is and always will be innocent. He would have never ever hurt a child (and didn't), he said so himself countless times in countless interviews. I would never put him or even picture him in the same category as Jimmy Savile, Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris, he was far from that category, he was nowhere near the likes of them. He was a lovely, kind hearted, caring, sweet, gentle man, definitely not capable of pulling off such a monstrosity. I remember watching this YouTube video of a live performance of "I Want You Back" in 1997 in which he spotted an insect on stage and automatically called his security guard to gently remove it from the stage in order to ensure no one stepped on it. Please, do you honestly think that a man as sweet and value of safety as him was capable of such sickening offences such as peadophilla? Give me a break, he couldn't even hurt an insect, let alone a child. He was harmless and completely misunderstood; people really should look closer into MJ's backstory then they'd realise that there's more to him than simply meets the eye, there are many things that a lot of people have never and still haven't taken into account. Remember, he had a tough life, he was abused by his father - as was Walt Disney by his - and he started his career when he was five years old, he was always on the road and in the studio, he was worked to the ground 24-7, he never had a proper childhood, imagine that, try putting yourself into those shoes, think of all the things he may have missed out on; birthday parities, christmases, easter egg hunts, trick or treating. Fame and fortune isn't all it's cut out to be, even if you're the most famous artist in the entire music industry, it's lonely at the top, when the shows over, the lights go out and the cheering stops you're all alone and the only friends you have are your voice and dance moves.
I haven't seen "Leaving Neverland", and I don't plan on watching it. I'm not going to waste my time watching a 4 hour film of lies and nonsense. In fact, I don't need to watch it, I've seen plenty of interviews of so-called "victims" in the past and not a single one of them has convinced me and these two jokers - Wade Robson and James Safechuck - aren't falling me either. I even read this article recently in which one of them claimed to have married MJ when they were 10, come on, who would be stupid enough to believe that ridiculous claim? Even Johnny Rotten defended MJ in the past, disagreeing with all the sexual allegations, and as we all know that man has a good sense for peadophiles; he knew about Savile way before he was convicted, so surely if MJ was a peadophile (which he wasn't) Rotten would have owned up about his suspicions a long time ago and he never has. Some of you may believe that he held back for the benefit of MJ's fans, but come on, let's be reasonable, this is Johnny Rotten we're talking about, the King of Punk himself, he's honest and outspoken, he's never one to held back; he never has and never will. This documentary film is a complete sham; every allegation from day one has been a sham, it's just a whole bunch of fuckers hungry for money, all the past accusers knew Michael Jackson, being pretty much the richest artist in the entire music industry (who even once owned the rights to The Beatles' music) would be the perfect target and this documentary film is no exception, it's just two poor fuckers who need a new stove or car, they know that while Michael's legacy continues to live on his estate and family will carry on making millions of money in his honour. And, grow up, just because a grown man is seen with kids it doesn't automatically make them a peadophile, however, it seems that those guys are the perfect targets; thus, targeting MJ and Walt Disney, perceptive yes, but completely stupid and idiotic; what evidence do you have? None at all! Face the facts, Michael Jackson, was not a peadophile, he was a lovely man and one of greatest human beings to ever exist in the dark cruel world, which by the way, would be a much better place if he was still with us.
