Band Aid 30’s reimagining of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ has made over £1million just minutes after the video for the track was unveiled on X Factor on Sunday (November 16th), with organiser Bob Geldof branding the amount of charitable donations made as “bonkers”.
All proceeds from the track, which features vocals from the likes of Bono, One Direction, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran, are being sent to West Africa to combat the outbreak of the Ebola virus. According to Geldof, four minutes after he revealed the track on X Factor the pre-orders for the song had surpassed £1million.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, the 63-year-old said: “It’s gone manic. That’s the digital age.
“We promoted the single on X Factor, Simon Cowell gave us five minutes of the show last night. Within four or five minutes of leaving the show we had a million quid. That’s extraordinary.
“From what we’re seeing now from iTunes it’s gone bonkers. The pre-orders of the thing were ridiculous.”
Watch the video below:
The single has had a vocal detractor in the form of Blur’s Damon Albarn, who stated that it “patronises” Africa. Speaking to Channel 4 News, Albarn said: “Having been to many countries and gotten to know many people, it always seems that we have only one view of it. There’s also this assumption that in Africa everyone knows what’s going on.
“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 and it starts to feel like it’s a process where if you give money you solve the problem, and really sometimes giving money creates another problem.”
“All those people who are making that, taking that afternoon out of their schedules, go to Africa, experience it, feel that sense of magic and maybe have a different attitude to life when you come back.”
