When it all came together…
So, 15 years ago today we were number one on the UK album chart. Well, because it was a compilation album they refused to put it in the actual chart, but the day before, War Child’s Help album had sold 72,000 copies - more than any other album in the country had managed over the previous six days. It was all pretty amazing. Help went on to raise $2.5M for Bosnia. Tony Blair gave it an award (we still quite liked him in 1995). The BRITS had to make up a new award.
The album had been first discussed about a month before, just after the Srebrenica massacre hit the headlines. It was the brainchild of my good friend, Tony Crean. We all thought Tony was crazy when he said we should get the top stars of Britpop together on one day in September to record an album. Oh, and release it, physically, five days later. This, remember was pre-internet. No-one had email. There was no file sharing. The whole thing had to be organized by fax and recorded on tape. Although, to be honest, we didn’t know any different back then.
Anyway, a week after that first meeting, Tony came back with Oasis, Massive Attack, Portishead, Paul Weller and, I think, The Stone Roses, confirmed. The Roses had spent five years recording their last album. Now they’d agreed to record a song in a day? Yeah, right.
What can I say? The rest is history. Twenty tracks were recorded on Monday, 4th September and released on Saturday the 9th. In the end, they all signed up - Blur, Radiohead, the Manics, KLF, Sinead. The Roses did make it on deadline. Even Macca got involved. He joined Weller and Noel Gallagher at Abbey Road to record a version of Come Together. With Johnny Depp on guitar. And Kate Moss on tambourine. It was that kind of day. The best of days.
You can read about what we achieved in this Observer article. And you can listen to it at War Child UK.
I don’t normally write about work on here but I thought this anniversary was worth breaking the rule for. I hope you agree.
