Why do musicians think (or pretend to think) they can change the world? What is with music business that people have to pretend they can 'make a difference'? How many Band Aids, Live Aids, charity concerts for this cause or for that other ground have been organized over the years? What is the matter with rock stars that they always have to remind you about babies dying in Africa, famines and natural disasters?
I don’t deny that some of them are sincere and have good intentions, but you don’t see that in other professions, at least not to that extent.
I am not saying it’s a bad thing, of course, if the money was really going to where it was supposed to go, but it’s rarely the case. But what I cannot stand is that most of the musicians who do preach for poverty and other under-developed countries, are asking for people to donate money and are taking a minimum out of their own pocket.
I am going to say the obvious here, but Bono for example is extremely wealthy, and could give tons of money without even noticing it. But he launched these highly publicized campaigns obviously for self-promotion. His Red campaign a few years ago was telling people to buy these red products, red t-shirts, red-iPods…. But why aren’t we hear more about the disproportionate ratio between the marketing budget (over $100 millions) and the money effectively raised ($18 millions)… His ONE campaign received almost £9.6million in donations in 2008 but handed out only £118,000 to good causes (1.2 per cent), according to the Dailymail, with £5.1million for paying salaries according to the New York Post! Who got richer at the end? And Bono’s name was once again written in gold letters in the humanist-philanthropist-yearbook, and almost nobody noticed the fraud.
Another example: as Helen mentioned it, Bon Jovi opened a charity restaurant, in Red Bank, NJ, where people pay what they can. There are no prices on the menu, but people can get free meals by doing volunteer work in the community or pay a suggested donation! Bon Jovi made more money from concerts than anyone else in 2010, over $200 million. So doesn’t he think he could pay for these meals at least for a year or two? A sort of very cheap self-promotion.
There are charities we don’t hear about, done by people with much more sincere intentions, but if you hear about a charity launched by a rock star, it is very probably done for the image of the so-called rock star.
What bothers me is this confusion between wealth and ‘significance for the world’, this Messiah complex some rock stars pretend to have, Michael Jackson may have been the best example of all. These people just have an over-inflated ego, which is just developing a hobby born of extreme profusion.