Wet, wet, wet: pop’s two damp squibs for Haiti

It's war again between the US and the UK in the charity single stakes. A quarter of a century ago, the question raging in pop circles was which of the two Ethiopia singles - Britain's Do They Know It's Christmas? or America's We Are The World - was the superior.

The general feeling was that We Are The World, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, and produced by the great Quincy Jones, was the winner. If you liked it, it was clearly the better of the two. If you didn't, it was definitely one of the worst pop anthems of all time.

Twenty-five years on, we have the battle of Haiti. For the Brits, pop impresario Simon Cowell, at the behest of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has got together a host of acts to record a cover version of REM's 1995 hit, Everybody Hurts. As The First Post reported yesterday, it is now getting radio airtime and will go on sale next Monday.

But within hours of the Cowell release, a short video clip appeared online from the recording of an American charity single for Haiti - a re-recording of We Are The World, again masterminded by Quincy Jones and Lionel Ritchie, but starring a whole new generation of US acts. It, too, will be released next week.

Which is the better of the two? Once again, the Americans look to have the lead.

Early reaction to the Cowell effort from bloggers and radio DJs has been lukewarm to rude, as in "I know it's for charity, BUT..." or "I'd rather just send the money than have to listen to this". For serious music fans, it seems the line-up is a little too heavy with graduates of Cowell's TV talent shows - the likes of "hairy angel" Susan Boyle and boy band JLS.

It hardly bears comparison with Bob Geldof and Midge Ure's Band Aid lineup for Do They Know It's Christmas. Released in December 1984 in reaction to Michael Buerk's harrowing BBC TV report on the famine in Ethiopia, it featured Bono, Sting, George Michael, David Bowie, Boy George and Paul McCartney among others, as well as Geldof and Ure.

So, what of the Quincy-Ritchie remake of We Are The World?

Their line-up (above) features L'il Wayne, Snoop Dogg, Nicole Scherzinger from the Pussycat Dolls and, gushing in the video clip about the wonders of charity, Celine Dion.

Not exactly the cream of rock 'n' roll compared with the line-up that came together in January 1985. While Do They Know It's Christmas? was still topping the UK pop chart, Harry Belafonte decided the US should have its own single to raise money for Africa.

With producer Quincy Jones in place, Belafonte managed to put together a line-up that included some of the most distinctive voices of their generation - Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, Tina Turner, Kenny Rogers, Ray Charles, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and, to top it all, Bob Dylan.

Going into the studio only hours after Jackson and Ritchie finished writing the number, it was the starriest charity band ever - and looks likely to remain so.

Watch the 1985 recording here.

Watch a behind-the-scenes clip as the 2010 version of 'We Are the World' is recorded

Listen to Simon Cowell's charity cover version of 'Everybody Hurts'.