Rebuilding Rob

If you are a member of the human race, chances are you probably like some kind of music. Whatever genre, whatever style, I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who has said “no, I don’t really like music”.

I’ve always been fascinated by the process that goes into making music, let alone creating a song. As somebody who fancies himself as a writer, there’s a big part of me that immediately assume the lyrics come first. I know that’s not always the case. For some people, it’s the melody, or one particular riff or a particular hook – if I’m using the musical parlance correctly.

I’m a child of the 80s, so of course I remember “We Are The World“ the African famine relief effort that was put together by Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie and several dozen American pop music stars of the time. I remember hearing the song on the radio, I remember seeing the music video on MTV. I remember watching the video and identifying all the different artists who were involved.

So I’m a little surprised that the recent Netflix documentary The Greatest Night in Pop managed to slip below my proverbial radar. Sure, I was driving to work one morning – maybe while I was teaching summer School – and I heard a couple of the morning hosts talking about the documentary. What a neat story it was! It sounded interesting, I thought to myself, and I didn’t really give it much thought beyond that, after all, it was a almost 40 year-old song.

But last night, and into today, I finally found The Greatest Night in Pop on Netflix and decided to watch it. I don’t wanna give away too much of the story behind the whole “U.S.A. for Africa“ effort. It’s a pretty remarkable story, but I will say that, as I mentioned earlier, this was the brainchild of Quincy Jones, who was inspired by Bob Geldof’s “do they know it’s Christmas time“ track by the British artist collectively known as Band-Aid.

Lionel Richie, Quincy Jones, and all of their employees begin making calls to see who would be interested in taking part less charity effort. The only realistic way to get them all together would be the night of December 23, 1985, just after the American music awards. The number of pop artists country singers, R&B stars and all-around musical legends that came together is a pretty magical undertaking.

I don’t want to give away a lot of details about the documentary. They’re not really spoilers, as it is a documentary. After all, we do know that the song gets released and raises a ton of money for Ethiopian famine relief. But even if someone who was growing up during this time, there are a lot of details that I hadn’t heard about the creation of “the world“ that come for the first time.

And we can say what we want to about the song itself. It is kind of cheesy. But the entire process of creating it recording it getting a few dozen rock star-sized egos in check was pretty amazing. It makes for a very entertaining 2 hour watch.

FINAL TAKE: if you were a fan of music, specifically pop music, if you’re into 80s nostalgia, or 80s music at all, it is definitely worth your time to watch The Greatest Night in Pop. As a child of the 80s myself, I think the newest part was seeing and hearing the voices of the nearly dozen artist of that crew who has since passed away. It was also very humanizing to see these “rock stars“ become a little starstruck with each other.

The Greatest Night in Pop is currently streaming on Netflix.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Rob’s Retro Movie Review: This is Spinal Tap (1984) – The Movie That Scaled to Eleven
• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “Rob Reviews : The Greatest Night in Pop” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob