tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/band-aid-13505/articlesBand Aid – The Conversation2017-05-17T20:13:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/765272017-05-17T20:13:51Z2017-05-17T20:13:51ZScience or Snake Oil: do Band-Aids really ‘heal cuts twice as fast’?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167793/original/file-20170503-21637-1etoyw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Don't believe the hype. Band-Aids might protect minor cuts but there's no publicly available evidence they speed up healing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Ltd/The Conversation</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everyone wants wounds to heal quickly, whether it’s a paper cut or a grazed knee. So it’s easy to be swayed by marketing claims on packs of adhesive bandages, and on signs in your local pharmacy, that promise faster healing.</p>
<p>Band-Aid’s pack of 50 plastic adhesive bandages, for instance, displays the <a href="https://www.band-aid.com.au/products/plastic/PlasticStrips50">claim</a> the product:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Heals cuts twice as fast.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And Band-Aid’s pack of ten so-called “Advanced Healing” adhesive bandages has the <a href="https://www.band-aid.com.au/products/AdvancedHealing/AdvancedHealingRegular10">claim</a> they promote “faster healing”.</p>
<p>In store, you might see promotional displays that promise Band-Aids are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Clinically proven to heal wounds faster.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But twice as fast as, or faster than what? And if this is clinically proven, who’s proved it?</p>
<h2>How do wounds heal?</h2>
<p>Wounds <a href="https://www.ausmed.com.au/guides/wound-care">heal themselves</a> because of a <a href="http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/884594-overview">complex process</a> at the site of the injury. There are three main phases: inflammation, proliferation and maturation.</p>
<p>Think of cutting your finger. The first thing that happens is the wound bleeds and eventually a blood clot forms and the bleeding stops. The area of injury is swollen and tender to touch. This is the inflammation phase.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167829/original/file-20170504-21608-3rwvbj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Where’s the evidence Band-Aids pack of ten ‘Advanced Healing’ adhesive bandages ‘promote faster healing’?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.band-aid.com.au/products/AdvancedHealing/AdvancedHealingRegular10">Johnson & Johnson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then it’s the proliferation phase. Over the next few hours, the blood clot becomes harder and a scab forms at the surface. </p>
<p>Below this scab, your body starts the process of healing the injury by sending in cells to fight infection. </p>
<p>That’s when your body begins to lay down collagen fibres (fibres of structural protein). These act like a simple scaffold to stabilise the damage and pull together the sides of the wound. This phase is also when new blood vessels grow in the wound.</p>
<p>The third phase of healing, maturation, takes around four to seven days after the injury for a small, uncomplicated cut. This involves a continual strengthening of the previously damaged area and new tissue replacing areas that have been damaged.</p>
<p>The final outcome is the wound is repaired, the scab falls off and there is usually little to no scarring. </p>
<p>This final phase can be more than a year for extensive wounds because our body continues to remodel the wound by breaking down the initially deposited collagen and replacing it with a structure that more closely resembles the original tissue. </p>
<p>This is why you often see a scar reduce over a period of time from one that’s raised and hard to one that’s less obvious.</p>
<h2>Can Band-Aids speed up this process?</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/167423/original/file-20170502-17287-134xibf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Band-Aid’s recent in-store display at Chemist Warehouse says its products are ‘clinically proven to heal wounds faster’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Prof Ken Harvey</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>This takes us back to the original question of whether Band-Aids can speed up the process of wound healing.</p>
<p>Is there something about these adhesive plasters that can speed up the processes of inflammation, proliferation and maturation that we’ve described? </p>
<p>And where are the trials to back they are “clinically proven” to do so?</p>
<p>The answer is we don’t know.</p>
<p>In correspondence from the supplier, Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Ltd, seen by the author, the company says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>With regards to the “heals two times faster” claim, we stand by our position that evidence does exist to support the claim.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The supplier does not clarify what its evidence relates to, namely whether it’s comparing Band-Aids to other adhesive bandages or to using no bandage at all.</p>
<p>But the company describes the evidence as “ageing” so it says it’s phasing out this claim. Until it does so, it’s likely to remain on old stock on pharmacy and supermarket shelves.</p>
<p>What about the “clinically proven” claim? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We stand by our decision that our ‘clinically proven’ claims are supported with robustly designed clinical trials.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the company says these trials are unpublished and again, the company says it’s phasing out this claim.</p>
<p>The company continues by saying such studies are “commercial in confidence”, meaning we don’t have access to them, so none can be independently verified.</p>
<h2>What should you do with a minor cut?</h2>
<p>There are simple things you can do to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4121107/">help a minor cut heal</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Wash the wound with clean water</li>
<li>apply a little pressure initially to help stop the bleeding</li>
<li>cover the injury with a clean dressing, and </li>
<li>protect the wound from additional trauma or mechanical force. </li>
</ul>
<p>This is where Band-Aids and other brands of adhesive bandage might be appropriate. They protect the area from additional injury and limit exposure to dirt and other potential contaminants.</p>
<p>But as “clinically proven” to help cuts “heal twice as fast”, in the absence of any peer reviewed evidence, at best this is an unsubstantiated claim and probably just marketing hype. Science or snake oil? Verdict: snake oil.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correspondence mentioned in this article relates to a letter between Johnson & Johnson Pacific Pty Ltd and Professor Ken Harvey, from Monash University, on a related matter. Excerpts are used with his permission.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Santamaria receives funding from Australian Commonwealth Government Coperative Research Centre for Wound Management Innovation and Molnlycke Health Care AB. He is affiliated with the World Union of Wound Healing Societies. </span></em></p>Where’s the evidence behind claims Band-Aids speed up wound healing? Here’s why we’ll never know.Nick Santamaria, Professor of Nursing Research, Skin Integrity and Wound Care, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/706152016-12-21T12:24:11Z2016-12-21T12:24:11ZJo Cox charity single: there’s no going back in the merging of pop and politics<p>It might seem odd, at a time when politicians are held in such low esteem, that a group of British MPs are part of a project that’s in the running to win an iconic popularity contest – the <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/prime-minister-theresa-may-backs-single-in-memory-of-jo-cox-aiming-for-official-christmas-number-1__17498/">Christmas Number 1 spot in the singles chart</a>. </p>
<p>Alongside a host of musicians including Steve Harley, David Gray and KT Tunstall, a cross-party group of MPs is appearing on a single to raise funds for the charitable foundation set up to continue the work of Batley and Spen MP <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/jo-cox-28509">Jo Cox</a>, who was murdered by hard-right winger Thomas Mair in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.</p>
<p>It’s a cover of the Rolling Stones song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMl5CRoFdk">You Can’t Always Get What You Want</a>, also recently in the news when <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/donald-trump-the-rolling-stones-mick-jagger-responds-to-use-of-you-cant-always-get-what-you-want-a7407151.html">Donald Trump used it</a> after his victory speech. Cox’s internationalist, progressive vision was utterly at odds with Trump’s ethos, so there’s an aspect of the charity single that could be read as trying to reclaim the song from reactionary forces.</p>
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<p>But there are other factors at play, too. The single confirms the convergence of the popular cultural and political mainstreams. This trend has been increasingly evident from the political end for a long time. The New Labour 1997 campaign’s use of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmwqEg-06Ww">Things Can Only Get Better</a> was perhaps the high watermark of electoral success in conjunction with pop. It certainly illustrated the political turn towards a media friendly strategy in the “news bite” culture, and the increasing prominence, if not prevalence, of spin that followed in the wake of rolling television news and the expansion of the internet. </p>
<p>Public relations aside, it’s also unsurprising that politicians would naturally lean towards appearing on the Jo Cox single. Generations of MPs have now grown up with rock. The Parliamentary band MP4, whose members appear on the single, is an ongoing endeavour, as is the <a href="http://louderthanwar.com/rock-the-house-calls-for-musicians-to-enter-contest-with-finals-in-parliament/">Rock the House</a> competition. </p>
<p>Philip Hammond’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-38293156">decision to waive VAT on the single</a>, likewise, echoes not just the Stones’ decision to forgo their royalties from it but the “official” endorsement of previous chancellors to facilitate charitable releases. This was <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/07/13/music-tax-the-prime-minister-how-live-aid-changed-the-uk-and-the-world/#29aa1769cdad">a bone of contention</a> in the case of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which kick-started the charity single trend in 1984.</p>
<h2>Activism to fundraising</h2>
<p>But this Stones cover also reveals how the convergence of political activism and popular music has evolved since the 1980s. Post Live Aid, activist pop has slowly but surely moved from the realm of the social towards the commercial.</p>
<p>Pop’s interventions in activism and the policy sphere used to involve a stronger grassroots component at the forefront. From the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/aug/10/folk.politicsandthearts">Aldermaston</a> marches in the 1950s, where popular jazz marching bands provided the soundtrack, to the CND, through to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/apr/20/popandrock.race">Rock Against Racism</a> in the 1970s, political pop tended to be driven from the local sphere upwards. Drawing on this dynamic, and the association with a “counter culture” that had opposed the Vietnam war in the 1960s, the likes of Joan Baez appealed to a “rock community” at Live Aid. “This is your Woodstock,” were her opening remarks. </p>
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<p>But Geldof’s Live Aid emphasis was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUoSIf55FN0">explicitly on fundraising</a> and the use of top-down star power to both drive home the point and fill the coffers. This represented a profound shift in the association of pop and politics.</p>
<p>Consider the phenomenon of the “charity single” and the ironies and paradoxes that it embodies. On the one hand, it could be said to dilute pop’s capacity to speak for the margins, in the mainstream at least. Certainly the Stones – fronted by Sir Mick Jagger – have long made their peace with the establishment since the fraught relationship that existed when they wrote You Can’t Always Get What You Want. This was once a band clouded by controversy in the wake of <a href="https://www.iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,1755802,1756208">drug busts</a> and associations with <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/6690506/The-Rolling-Stones-at-Altamont-the-day-the-music-died.html">Hells Angels</a>. No longer.</p>
<p>But while it is becoming easier for politicians to get directly involved in the pop process, the charity single may also make it easier for pop stars to have a direct effect – certainly one that’s measurable – albeit primarily in financial terms. Despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/24/g8.debtrelief">controversies</a> after the fact about the long-term effect of Live Aid, there’s little question about its fundraising capacity. Or about it cementing the idea of musicians as actors on the political stage.</p>
<h2>Shifting cultures</h2>
<p>This also echoes broader, underlying cultural and political shifts since the end of the 1970s. There’s been a general move away from notions of collective activity, community and the role of the state, towards the concept of individual responsibility. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Rockin_the_Boat.html?id=wpbuz4Td3_4C&redir_esc=y">Reebee Garofalo</a> has compared the Live Aid model to Woodstock as representatives of pop politics: the latter embodying a communitarian ethos, the former framing the audience as consumers.</p>
<p>The ostensible onus on individuals to make a difference by digging into their wallets has been a central feature of pop’s claim to benefiting the public good since Live Aid. But even when there has been mobilisation around an issue and a specific policy focus, as with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/thelive8event/lineupandartists/">Live 8 in 2005</a>, the scale of success is debatable. Arguably Geldof’s greatest diplomatic achievement at Live 8 was less in brokering any <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5128344.stm">lasting G8 action on third world debt</a> than getting the fractious <a href="http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-live-8-reunion/">members of Pink Floyd onto the same stage again</a> after decades of animosity. </p>
<p>This isn’t to decry the charity model. Nor to deny the activism that takes place further away from the pop centre – there’s still a need for a line between grassroots action and the corridors of power. In the long run, these changes just shine a light on the evolution of musical forms, and consequently their social and political positioning. With grassroots work increasingly oriented towards the internet, it’s perhaps inevitable that maturing forms like rock gravitate towards a space closer to the media and political centre.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>MPs and rock songs may seem like odd bedfellows, but the charity single marks a longstanding shift in how music mobilises the masses.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/345072014-11-21T05:57:19Z2014-11-21T05:57:19ZSongs of love, songs of hate and songs of Ebola<p>I was living and working in Africa at the time of Band Aid 1984. I found the song Do They Know it’s Christmas? cloying, but I recognised that it was mobilising ordinary citizens towards concern and compassion.</p>
<p>When I returned to the UK two years later, I lived in Faversham – where Bob Geldof also lived. I would see him and his family in the marketplace and it was impossible to shake his achievement from my mind. I did not admire how he and Bono, for a time, moved with the great and not so good but felt that, in their own ways, they were trying to further the cause of a better world. Gradually, I forgot the song.</p>
<p>Then, in 1992, I was working in Eritrea. Back in 1984, it had been part of Ethiopia, and had been severely hit by the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/703958.stm">famine of that year</a>. I was there directing a project of reconstruction after the bitter 30-year war to attain independence. I was in Massawa, the second city of Eritrea, by the Red Sea, and it had been bombed to ruination. I visited the execution ground used by the former Ethiopian dictator and counted hundreds of bodies. I was not in a good mood when, walking on the beach, I was joined by a youngster who spoke broken English. On hearing I came from England, he spoke about the famine of 1984. I never forgot his words: “I hear there was a singer then who tried to help us.”</p>
<p>Cloying as Geldof’s song may have been, the intention behind it had given people hope. Someone – someone with an identity as a singer, not a nameless bureaucrat – tried to help.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/81217">latest Band Aid song</a>, which aims to raise money to fight Ebola, has been greeted with far more controversy than its predecessor. Should we still view Africa as an object of pity, as an epicentre of starvation and, now, disease? Is this not now condescending and dated, given the dynamic progress Africa has made?</p>
<p>I think this is a legitimate concern. I feel it myself. But it is important not to be politically correct in any generalised way about a continent of 54 countries, not all of whom have emerged from poor governance and the kind of wretched living conditions that allow the spread of disease.</p>
<p>Those conditions constitute an objective fact. The disease that breaks out of these conditions, and the disastrous human toll it takes, are objective facts. Doing something about it is not a bad thing. If that something is the wrong thing, it takes its place alongside great confusion, slowness and hesitation to do the right things. In these circumstances, it is often even difficult to identify the right things to do. Having an enlightened view of Africa does not in itself do anything to help people.</p>
<p>There are ironies of course. A lot of the money Geldof raised and governments gave in 1984 was spent on sending food. Not enough medicine was sent, so that those weakened by hunger succumbed to disease. In the Ebola outbreak, governments ill-advisedly quarantined slums without first providing the slum dwellers with enough food. Meanwhile, everyone is hoping for the vaccine, the silver bullet that will change the course of the disease. Nothing completely right has yet been done.</p>
<p>I wonder, if the latest Band Aid song does any good by way of money and succour whether any of the beneficiaries will care about the fact that it’s a clammy number sung by spoilt superstar children, led by a tousle-haired middle-aged singer? I doubt many people will even hear the song in West Africa.</p>
<p>But if a single life is extended or saved because of it, perhaps the comment I once heard by the Red Sea will be spoken again. The big question of course is a simple one: even if the song, its message, and the image of Africa it conveys are bad, what are its critics doing about Ebola? A middle class politically correct drawing room is ominously like an air-conditioned recording studio in its distance from things that are terrible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
I was living and working in Africa at the time of Band Aid 1984. I found the song Do They Know it’s Christmas? cloying, but I recognised that it was mobilising ordinary citizens towards concern and compassion…Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/344842014-11-20T01:14:38Z2014-11-20T01:14:38ZWhat do Band Aid 30 and Taylor Swift tell us about Spotify?<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The original 1984 Band Aid.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Two stories in the news this week are more closely-linked than you might have thought. First, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/102146425">Taylor Swift has pulled her entire catalogue from free music streaming service, Spotify</a>, and second, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-17/stars-sing-about-ebola-chimes-of-doom-in-band-aid-premiere/5896138">the white hats of Band Aid 30 have once again saddled up</a>, this time to raise money to treat Ebola.</p>
<p>Taylor Swift’s motivation is obvious enough: rightly or wrongly (<a href="https://theconversation.com/sorry-radiohead-music-is-a-dog-not-a-god-19587">and I think rightly</a>) Swift believes that Spotify doesn’t pay her as much money as her music is worth. Nor is this the first time that Swift has fallen out with the siren of streaming. <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/10/29/why-isnt-taylor-swift-1989-on-spotify/">Swift’s Red album had a delayed release on Spotify</a> that came months after it was available in paid-for formats. </p>
<p>So what has this got to do with Band Aid 30? The venerable Geldof juggernaut is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/do-they-know-its-christmas/id940786969?i=940786981">now on sale</a>, but again <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30061576">will not be on Spotify</a> until January: if you want to listen to it you either need to get lucky with the radio or cough up a few cents that will be used to stop people dying. </p>
<p>This has two implications. First, until now, it has been possible to dismiss Swift, Radiohead, and other opter-outers as whinging megastars who want a spare set of gold-plated tires for their private jets. But there is no way that Band Aid’s similar actions can be dismissed as corporate avarice. Put simply, even when they are not acting in commercial self-interest, pop stars really don’t think that Spotify income equates to the market value of their work.</p>
<p>Second, both Swift and Band Aid are on the cutting edge of music marketing, and highlight a new model whereby consumers pay for immediate access and can then get the music without paying only some months later. This has been presented as savvy business practice, and is novel for the music industry, but again highlights how slow the latter has been in adapting to the digital revolution.</p>
<p>For at least my entire life, Hollywood has made you pay A$20 to watch a new release in the cinema, but only let you watch it at home without paying several months or years later. Swift and Band Aid’s business savvy novelty parallels standard movie practice for at least the past 40 years.</p>
<p>While we’re on this subject, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/nov/15/should-band-aid-be-resurrected-debate">the Band Aid release has been subjected to the usual cynicism</a>. While criticism levelled at pop star ego is always fine by me, a second gripe is that Band Aid is ineffective. It is interesting that the same criticism is rarely levelled at other less glitzy charities, but nonetheless I couldn’t resist this opportunity to point out that there is direct evidence that music really can rock the world, and not just by raising money.</p>
<p>Economics research published in the 1990s <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016748709190029S">showed</a> that the amount of pessimistic rumination in the lyrics of hit songs could predict upturns and downturns in consumer confidence and Gross Domestic Product. </p>
<p>Other work has <a href="http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/71/1/211.short">shown</a> that the frequency with which country is played on the radio can predict changes in the suicide rate. So if music can influence people’s beliefs concerning the economy and suicide, it is clearly going to impact upon a “pushing at an open door issue” such as saving lives. </p>
<p>So be nice to Taylor Swift: what she is doing is sensible, even if it isn’t terribly innovative. And be very nice to Band Aid as they’re simply reflecting the fact that Spotify income won’t save many lives, even though conventional sales of the song might well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Two stories in the news this week are more closely-linked than you might have thought. First, Taylor Swift has pulled her entire catalogue from free music streaming service, Spotify, and second, the white…Adrian North, Head of School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/344032014-11-19T01:48:08Z2014-11-19T01:48:08ZShould you buy Band Aid 30?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64924/original/image-20141119-7522-zb2fmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Band Aid is an apt name, addressing the symptoms of the Ebola crisis rather than the underlying reasons.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Hannah McKay</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>It really doesn’t matter if you don’t like this song. It doesn’t matter if you hate the artists. What matters is that you buy the record.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/adele-spokesperson-denies-ignored-band-aid-30-request">said</a> the Irish songwriter Bob Geldof last weekend, in anticipation of Band Aid 30’s release of a revamped <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w7jyVHocTk">Do They Know It’s Christmas?</a>, recorded with contemporary artists (and Bono) to raise money for the Ebola crisis. </p>
<p>It didn’t sound like much of a sales pitch, but so far so good. When it was launched on Britain’s X Factor on Monday night, Geldof <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/17/band-aid-30-single-raises-1-million-pounds-within-minutes-x-factor-debut">claimed</a> it had raised £1m within five minutes of launch. </p>
<p>The crisis is real, but the resurrection of the song has raised the spectre of the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/africa-doesn-want-any-more-we-20141112103245331194.html">offence caused</a> by the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjQzJAKxTrE">original</a> 1984 record.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Band Aid 30 - Do They Know It’s Christmas? (2014).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The original sold more than 6 million copies worldwide and generated enormous publicity for the Ethiopia crisis. Yet for many Africans, the song itself reproduced an overly familiar image of Africa as both barren and lacking any means of self-determination. </p>
<p>The idea it was up to the Western consumers to “let them know it’s Christmas time” smacked of a missionary past and was read by many as patronising a largely Christian continent. </p>
<p>Perhaps most offensively, it presents the image of Western, mostly white, saviours delivering the “gift of life” to Africa on behalf of a population of well-meaning consumers.</p>
<p>Band Aid 30 also has its critics. </p>
<p>African-American philanthropist and activist <a href="http://africansinthediaspora.org/team/staff/solome-lemma/">Solome Lemma</a>, who organised the local initiative <a href="http://africaresponds.org/">Africa Responds</a>, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/11/africa-doesn-want-any-more-we-20141112103245331194.html">expressed</a> disappointment that Geldof had not chosen to work with talented local artists and written a different song. </p>
<p>Former Blur singer Damon Albarn <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/damon-albarn-band-aid-africa-music-blur-frontman-video">commented</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are problems with our idea of charity, especially these things that suddenly balloon out of nothing and then create a media frenzy where some of that essential communication is lost. It starts to feel like it’s a process where if you give money you solve a problem, and really giving money creates another problem.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So is there a problem with giving money, and should you buy the record?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64928/original/image-20141119-7338-q2xkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Latest statistics from the United Nations World Health Organization placed the death toll from the Ebola virus outbreak at 4,447.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While clearly Albarn makes reference to the symbolic inequality of charity relations between needy Africans and Western benefactors, his comments also point to a deeper concern that, rather than a meaningful form of action, buying into initiatives such as Band Aid becomes its sentimental substitute.</p>
<p>The concern here goes beyond the criticism that rather than focusing on the crisis we focus on celebrities. Rather, it is that a clean conscience costs only A$2.19, as consumers buy into the celebration of ourselves as members a good community, fundamentally committed to relieving suffering. </p>
<p>Not only are we personally relieved of the burden of knowing or doing more; we also “buy” the idea that we are part of a virtuous community that has humanitarian interest at its heart. </p>
<p>When British chancellor George Osborne <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/11232961/Osborne-to-waive-VAT-on-Band-Aid-ebola-single.html">praised</a> Geldof, while declaring Band Aid 30 would not be taxed, he sought to translate such communitarian sentiment into political capital.</p>
<p>One of the much-criticised lines of the original record was “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”, though mostly for the wrong reasons. While thanking the Lord for another’s misfortune may feel icky, the deeper problem with this (now excised) lyric is a perspective that is harder to delete: the idea that “they” are suffering rather than you is simply a matter of providence or luck.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bjQzJAKxTrE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Band Aid - Do They Know It’s Christmas? (1984).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This presentation of developed-world fortune and developing-world misfortune is a familiar one, and while we may regret its apparent permanence we can assuage our conscience that we are acting to help those less fortunate.</p>
<p>What makes the developing world’s exposure to risk so massively disproportionate is not luck at all, but rather inequality. Poverty and a relative lack of infrastructure, among other factors, make the developing world far more vulnerable to natural, political and epidemiological crises. </p>
<p>The fact such crises so regularly call for our compassion indicate such inequality is a fairly permanent feature of global social relations.</p>
<p>Ebola provides an interesting case in this regard, as it is simultaneously reported as a humanitarian crisis and as a potential risk to our own health and security. </p>
<p>In recent years, “security” has provided a guiding rationale for humanitarian initiatives in the developed world. “Human security” positions humanitarian and development efforts as the means for securing global social order against the social impacts of global risks.</p>
<p>For its critics, the problem with this is that it is only concerned to address inequality in a superficial way: just enough so that “their” chaos does not affect – or infect - “our” order.</p>
<p>Celebrity initiatives such as Band Aid 30, likewise, address the symptoms of emergency rather than underlying reasons why such emergencies disproportionately arise in the developing world. Band Aid, in this respect, is an apt name for such intervention.</p>
<p>There is no doubt the emergency is real, and if it’s a choice between buying the record and doing nothing else my view is that – for all its faults – you probably should. </p>
<p>But think carefully about what you’re buying into.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Nolan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It really doesn’t matter if you don’t like this song. It doesn’t matter if you hate the artists. What matters is that you buy the record. So said the Irish songwriter Bob Geldof last weekend, in anticipation…David Nolan, Senior Lecturer - Media and Communications, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/341652014-11-13T06:16:57Z2014-11-13T06:16:57ZFrom Band Aid to Dapper Laughs, charity songs are all about hitting the right tone<p>The charity song is an odd thing. Generally composed with the simple intent of raising money for a cause, the musical quality of the thing somehow falls by the wayside. In the charts, it’s an anomaly, and they certainly prompt strong opinions. </p>
<p>November has been the month of the charity song. Bob Geldof and Midge Ure have announced Band Aid 30, the third recording of the ultimate charity song Do They Know It’s Christmas?, this time to raise money for those countries afflicted with Ebola. </p>
<p>And then there’s Danny O'Reilly’s version of the charity single. This is the man more commonly known as Dapper Laughs, who kicked up a media storm for making a series of deeply offensive comments about women and the homeless. ITV have just dropped his “laddish” comedy show <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/10/itv-drops-dapper-laughs-criticism-daniel-oreilly-misogyny">Dapper Laughs: On the Pull</a>. He had attempted to salvage some sense of propriety after his comments about the homeless by offering royalty donations to the charity Shelter for a song called A Walk To The Pub… With A Tramp. For some reason, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/29949815">Shelter didn’t want his money</a>.</p>
<p>These are poles apart in terms of tone but both have proved contentious.</p>
<h2>Band Aid set the tone</h2>
<p>The original Do They Know It’s Christmas? was produced in 1984. The inspiration for the Boomtown Rats and Ultravox vocalists to write it was provided by stark televised images of starving people in drought-torn Africa. The idea was to raise money to provide food for the starving: to use music to save lives. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64402/original/92t7vsfw-1415812359.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=739&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original Band Aid.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/retrolandusa/6566803151">retrolandusa</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Band Aid brought together stellar pop artists, such as Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Bono, George Michael, Boy George and Sting. The song reached #1 for Christmas 1984 and ultimately sold more than three million copies. Royalties all went towards famine relief. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/11/band-aid-30-patronising-bob-geldof-ebola-do-they-know-its-christmas?CMP=fb_gu">Whatever you think about the song itself</a>, it demonstrated the potential to which pop music could focus public attention and galvanise charitable giving on an enormous scale. It was a potent example of what celebrity power could achieve and was the defining moment in which rock stars definitively entered into the political arena. </p>
<p>And so they wheeled it out again in 2004 to raise money for food aid for Darfur, recruiting a new generation of stars such as Dido, Chris Martin, Robbie Williams, Busted, and Dizzee Rascal. And now we’re at the third new release. Bono’s still around, and the new pantheon of chart-friendly and critically-acclaimed stars with considerable fan bases consists of One Direction, Bastille, Elbow, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, Paloma Faith, and Adele.</p>
<h2>Pop politics</h2>
<p>Pop stars entering the realm of politics is not something that has been universally endorsed. There are the issues of self-publicity to the power relation of affluent millionaire Western celebrities helping the “powerless” Southern world, to the undeniably mawkish quality of the song’s lyrics.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the fusion of pop talent with a cause that seeks to directly alleviate human suffering has, over the course of 30 years, chimed with the public and dramatically displayed the social benefits that can result from music recorded for charitable purposes (with the added impetus of the Christmas giving spirit being emotively invoked). </p>
<p>While the 2014 iteration of Do They Know It’s Christmas? will unquestionably be successful. It has top stars and a worthy cause. But the banner of charity is not a guarantor of success, nor is it a means by which controversy can be sidestepped, as Dapper Laughs discovered. Shelter rejected O'Reilly’s royalties due to the album’s trivialisation of homelessness. The song is offensive, and so inappropriate as a source of charitable income. </p>
<h2>Tone deaf</h2>
<p>O’Reilly is not alone in attempting to buffer censure through charitable giving. DJ Mike Read discovered this with his <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukip-calypso-cringe-shows-weve-glossed-over-black-musics-radical-history-33378">UKIP Calypso song</a>. The song contained anti-EU and immigration references and was sung in a Caribbean accent. It was supposed to share profits with the British Red Cross and its Ebola campaign. The charity stated that it could not accept money from the song due to its political allegiance to a particular party and its references to asylum seekers.</p>
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<p>Band Aid is not safe from similar complaints. Writing in the Guardian, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/11/band-aid-30-patronising-bob-geldof-ebola-do-they-know-its-christmas?CMP=fb_gu">Bim Adewunmi railed against it</a>, calling it “clumsy, patronising and wrong in so many ways”. And she has a point. Charitable giving cannot override negative perceptions, as Dapper Laughs has learned. </p>
<p>But Band Aid 30, whatever the complaints, offers the chance to re-kindle the spirit of 1984 for a new generation of pop fans with a new generation of pop star. It will connect with a humanitarian cause, tap into the fervent fandom that surrounds acts such as One Direction and Sam Smith and cancel out any residual cynicism. But perhaps it’s time for a new song? If it was pitch-perfect, who knows what new success we could see.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Barron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The charity song is an odd thing. Generally composed with the simple intent of raising money for a cause, the musical quality of the thing somehow falls by the wayside. In the charts, it’s an anomaly…Lee Barron, Principal Lecturer in Media and Communication Design, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.