They Were the World, They Were the Children
Ranking the vocal solo parts in "We Are the World" in celebration of the terrific new documentary The Greatest Night in Pop:
01. Stevie Wonder Absolutely kills it. Stevie's solo sans Springsteen (on whom see way below...) from 5:07–5:20 is the only transcendently awesome part of this song. The doc's fascinating anecdote about how Stevie also served as Fellow-Genius-Whisperer when Bob Dylan was awkwardly out of his element further enhances the importance of his contribution here.
02. Diana Ross The prettiest solo (with just a bit of MJ backing), and her pointing hand gesture at 1:43 is sweetly endearing, particularly after hearing in the doc about how much the experience meant to her. (Also: look closely behind Ross as she sings, and you'll see Tina Turner knelt down seemingly trying to find something in her purse and for a second glancing up at the camera, lol!)
03. Willie Nelson So much plaintive minor-key beauty packed into nine seconds, and that slight wince at 2:05 really sells it.
04. Paul Simon Likewise condenses what he does best (as a singer) into less than 10 seconds.
05. Michael Jackson It's hard to know where to rank his vocal contribution here. In a larger sense, this is unmistakably a MJ song, especially in hindsight, as both lyrically and melodically this sounds quite close to his signature ballads from Dangerous onward. His solo part is fine. It fits well, and is maybe most admirable for its relative restraint. Obviously he could've totally outshone everyone else, give or take Stevie Wonder, but he didn't, which ultimately made the(/his, essentially) song better on measure.
06. Tina Turner Also remarkably restrained; she sounds so good down in that subtle low range.
07. Cyndi Lauper The opposite, yet in its way approximately as good, Cyndi sings the absolute hell out of "Let's realize THAT A CHANGE CAN ONLY COME". Apparently she got the nod over Madonna, and her eight seconds of solo time leave no doubt that she was the more expressive, and superior, singer. The doc's anecdote about her noisy jewelry was hilarious.
08. Dionne Warwick Nicely sung and transitions well to Willie Nelson's part while contrasting with it.
09. Ray Charles and 10. Bob Dylan Both of these slightly expanded cameo slots are instantly recognizable and distinctive, but also feel a touch out of place in the flow of the song.
11. Lionel Richie Sets the table for what follows –- and what exists largely due to his Herculean labour, MJ's effortless brilliance, and Quincy Jones' ability to make something super rushed and inherently messy sound cohesive and fairly polished.
12. Al Jarreau I now like Jarreau's (tiny) part 80% more after learning from the doc that he was chugging wine all night, and it was basically a race against time to record him getting through his five-second bit before he could no longer form words. Legendary stuff!
13. James Ingram Hmm... [googles 'James Ingram']...Oh! He sang Fievel's part on "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail, one of the best animated-movie songs of all-time (later re-purposed in one of the best Community sequences!). To be sure, Ingram's bit here isn't Fievel-level great, but it's totally solid.
14. Huey Lewis Apparently filled in for M-I-A Prince (who insisted on recording a guitar solo in a separate room, and when Richie said it wasn't feasible Prince hung up the phone and never showed at the studio, which is exquisitely on-brand!), and did so pretty serviceably. For posterity's sake, I think it's for the best that we have that excellent Prince story but Lewis' solo –– notwithstanding the glaring fact that the greatness gap between HL and PRN is of Grand Canyon-like dimensions!
15. Kenny Rogers Now getting into just-OK territory. (As a 90s kid, what remains my first mental association for Kenny Rogers isn't musical, but rather the Seinfeld episode involving 'his' fried chicken and neon restaurant sign.)
16. Kim Carnes Poor Kim Carnes had to follow right after Cyndi Lauper blasted off into the stratosphere, a fact that Lauper acknowledged (while also admitting that she didn't actually like the song itself!) on Andy Cohen's show. Watch closely at 3:01 and you'll see that Carnes is only truly solo when singing "when we," though that is exactly two words more than Sheila E. (per the doc, included in the choir specifically to entice Prince, which didn't work), Harry Belafonte, Smokey Robinson, Waylon Jennings, John Oates, and any Jackson not named 'Michael' get to deliver solo.
17. Daryl Hall, 18. Kenny Loggins, and 19. Billy Joel Mehsville, USA. I would've rather seen what Dan Aykroyd (for whatever reason included as part of the larger group for the big chorus parts) could do with a solo spot. Would he have done a Blues Brothers thing? Or just sang as...Dan Aykroyd? This is low-key one of the great pop-culture what-if's! And the deeply unlikely answer to the trivia question "Who is the only person who both sang on 'We Are the World' and acted in a Terence Davies movie?"
20. Steve Perry Exactly as much Steve Perry singing as I can comfortably tolerate.
21. Bruce Springsteen The artistic merit of "We Are the World" lies in the way most of its solo parts encapsulate the quintessence of each singer's particular vocal style/persona, pared down to amuse-bouche-like portions, while somehow mostly still fitting together to form (again, due in large part to the wizardry of Quincy Jones) a long song that hangs together pretty well all things considered. The Boss (who is my favourite among all the artists involved; only Paul Simon and, with more ambivalence, MJ come close) is the only singer here who fatally crosses the line into full-on self-parody, which is really a shame because he can be a very nuanced singer when he wants to, and could've supplied a performance that better fit the song while still "sounding like Bruce Springsteen" – i.e., more Nebraska, less Born in the USA. He had just finished touring in support of the latter album, and was apparently deeply exhausted from that. I wish he had channeled that feeling of exhaustion (think: "Highway Patrolman," "Atlantic City") rather than summoning up a rather cartoonish Bruce Springsteen impression.
