VARIOUS ARTISTS FIELDS OF HOPE
Dara 2000, 65 mins
Tracklisting:
Dolores Keane – Storm in My Heart -
Altan – Castles in The Air
- Van Morrison & The
Chieftans – Irish Heartbeat
- Sinead Lohan –
Everything Around Me is Changing
- Mary Black – Ae
Fond Kiss - David Gray –
Lead
Me Upstairs - U2 –
Staring at The Sun - Sinead
O’Connor – Ode To Billie
Joe - Maire Brennan – Ceolfidh
Mé - Christy Moore –
Lovely Young One - Dónal
Lunny & Coolfin – Butlers -
The Cranberries – Dreaming My
Dreams - Jack L –
Rooftop Lullabye - The Corrs
- Runaway
Although it goes without saying that
the thinking
behind it was a truly admirable
demonstration of how
people power in a needy hour could
really save lives,
the Band Aid single ‘Do They Know
It’s Christmas?(Feed
The World)’ will always bring a
bad taste to many
mouths. Apart from giving rise to
countless other
cheesy charity tunes featuring duets
from ‘well
intended’ faltering stars who linked
arms while
grinning inanely (you know who they
are!), the music
itself amounted to little more than
second rate, lame
pop. Several years on from this
we have learnt the
hard way that like puppies, benefit
albums are not
just for Christmas, but for life!
Here’s where this
album comes in. There are no ill-fitting
duets or
sing-along anthems here, but quite
a few rare tracks
which showcase some of Ireland’s
most established
songwriters and musicians with a
predominantly
traditional and folk vibe. Dolores
Keane’s distinctive
sean nós touch to an airy
‘Storm in My Heart’
complements the low-key acoustic
touches of Sinead
Lohan’s ‘Everything Around Me is
Changing’. Meanwhile
U2’s live acoustic version of ‘Staring
at The Sun’
proves that they can still churn
out a striking tune
without the aid of their arsenal
of electronic
gadgetry, just as David Gray’s sauntering
sonnet ‘Lead
Me Upstairs’ finds him in flying
form on front of an
adoring audience. Doing more than
their bit to
compensate for The Corr’s uninspired,
albeit well
delivered live rendition of ‘Runaway’,
Sinead O’Connor
offers her sparse, soulful recording
of ‘Ode To Billie
Joe’ while Kildare crooner jack
L does his Scott
Walker thing on the wide screen
‘Rooftop Lullabye’.
More importantly, the distressing
fact that 40,000
children die every day from lack
of food is a problem
that really shouldn’t be forgotten
until the next
Christmas compilation is rolled
out. Buy this record,
not just because you feel you should,
but because it
is worth the money.