Hope For Haiti Now Soundtrack
The Hope for Haiti Now soundtrack is now available for download on iTunes. My wife pre-ordered it on Friday night after the program, then it was available for download on Saturday. When she logged in all of her songs started to download. We’ve been listening to it on heavy rotation ever since. This is the impression of a few of the songs on the album.
Songs come from a diverse range of singers, crossing most genres of music. Alicia Keys sings “Send me an Angel”, followed by Cold Play’s “A Message 2010″, then Bruce Springsteen stammers through ”We Shall Overcome”. Stevie Wonder performs his rendition of “Time to Love/Bridge over Troubled Water” which is awesome. Shakira covers “I’ll Stand By You”. It’s o.k., but I prefer Chrissie Hyndes’s version. John Legend plays “Motherless Child”. Mary J. Blige sings “Hard Times Come No More,” which sounds like a southern spiritual song. I like that a lot. Taylor Smith sings “Breathless” followed by Christina Aguilera singing “Lift Me Up.” Both of them have beautiful voices, I can see why Taylor Smith’s star is rising. Sting’s “Driven to Tears” sounds more frustrated than mournful.
Beyonce sings “Halo” with modified lyrics to give a special recognition to Haiti. Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock and Keith Urban croon out a nice acoustic version of “Lean on Me”, and Madonna contributes her “Like a Prayer” with a backup choir. Justin Timberlake and Matt Morris sing a sad duet of the song “Hallelujah” and Jennifer Hudson sings a soulful rendition of “Let it Be”. Emiline Mitchel sings another southern spiritual sounding song called “Many Rivers to Cross,” and then Jay Z, Bono, The Edge & Rihanna collaborate on a song called “Stranded (Haiti mon Amor).” Dave Matthews and Neil Young team up for a heart-bruising duet on “Alone and Forsaken.” Haiti native Wyclef Jean follows up with “Rivers of Babylon/Yele” and ends on a positive note, encouraging the people of Haiti, letting us know that this tragedy is not going to keep them down for long. As a bonus, there’s another version of “Stranded” by the same performers.
At a price of $7.99 for 20 tracks by big name artists, this would be a steal, but the fact that all of the proceeds go to helping the Haiti earthquake victims almost makes it a must buy. Here’s a direct link to the album on iTunes (link launches iTunes): Hope for Haiti Now
Bruce Springsteen “stammers”???!!!!! …. ;-)