Universal Music reckon they have achieved the fastest turn round of a track in the download age with the new version of Band Aid's 'Do They Know It's Christmas'. The track, featuring the talents of Chris Martin, Dido, Robbie Williams, Justin Hawkins, Fran Healy, Will Young and Dizzee Rascal, among others, was recorded in London on Sunday of course. It got its first radio play on Tuesday morning, and will be available for music fans to download at some point today.
The charity track will be available through numerous UK download platforms, including Napster, those run by OD2 and a special site - http://www.buybandaid20.com. The track will be sold for £1.49. The CD release's b-side (the original 1984 version which, having heard the new version, a more cynical man might say is the main reason for buying the CD single in the first place) is also available for download for 99p.
Commenting on the rapid turn around of the track Barney Wragg, Vice President of Universal Music eLabs, told reporters: "Making this track available as a download so fast, through so many retailers, was a real logistical challenge, but everyone did their best - in fact, more than their best. I'm sure there will be further rapid studio-to-consumer digital downloads in future, but none for as worthy a cause as this one."
Elsewhere in Band Aid news, Westlife and Ronan Keating have expressed their disappointment at not being asked to get involved with the re-recording of the charity track.
Westlife's Nicky Byrne has told the Daily Star: "We couldn't compete with U2 or Coldplay but it would have been fanatastic to have been part of it. We'd have given anything to be on that record."
Meanwhile Ronan told the Richard and Judy Show: "They're not going for pop acts, they want credible cool acts. If that works, fair enough, but at the end of the day they want to make money for the cause so they should think about that."
Of course Ronan's right that for a project like Band Aid artist sell-ability is more important than being cool or credible (which is just as well, because that cynical man would probably point out the finished product isn't particularly cool or credible). But by recruiting Robbie, Dido, Coldplay and Busted I don't think Ure or Geldof could be accused of ignoring the big-pull artists.