Review 88: Various Artists - What's Goin' On?

God almighty - what IS going on??

OK, bare with me people - this one's going to be tough. I mean, one look at the names on this charity EP are enough to give any normal person nightmares; Nelly, J-Lo, Moby, Fred Durst.. it's like one giant super-suck attack. And that's just what they do to this timeless classic - attack it, rip out its heart and leave a ghastly, noisy pointless mess.

So, the radio version is up first, which has well known political persona's like Justin Timberlake and Fred Durst telling us how bad the world is. The gimmick of the video is that they're all blindfolded. Pity those blindfolds didn't all slip and we could have had the world's first mass hanging. Certainly clean the music world up a bit. Anyway, it's rubbish, a poor attempt at a milestone hit. But, oh Lord, there's more to come.

The "London" version (recorded in, ah, London. Lucky it wasn't Skegness) has the likes of Bono and Chris Martin from dull uber-band Coldplay. You will no longer fear Hell after you hear Chris Martin sing this song. It is quite easily the worst thing you'll hear all year. Keep trying to hit those high notes, Chris. Gaaaaah.

And next, it's your pal and mine - Moby. Now, spooky fact, Moby used to make rock records, and damn fine ones as well. These days he's happy to put out any old new-age plinky plonky crap, get some woman to sing over it, put the song on about twenty adverts for supermarkets and Vauxhall cars and count the cash. Somehow I think the "message" got lost in this one..

But if the message got lost in Moby's, it's well and truly baffled and lying in its own urine when it comes to Fred Dursts attempt. Words can't express how bad this actually is - because it's EXACTLY the same as every other Limp Bizkit song. There's loud guitars. Fred speaks in that stupid "I can't sing, so I'll speak the words I don't shout" voice, and then bellows at you. I can really see this comforting the victims of either AIDS or 9/11 or whatever the Hell they're pretending this is for. Yeah, when you think of mending broken hearts and wounds that don't heal - you think Limp Bizkit.

There's a few other versions thrown on here, all from faceless hip hop puppets and pop idiots, all singing a song they don't deserve to and singing for a cause they probably don't understand. It's a sad state of affairs when THIS is what gets passed off as an event in music.

And you would think that they would at least put the original version on here? I dunno, for good measure, or good taste or something? No - that would make sense. "What's Going On?" You, me and every person on this record have absolutely NO idea.