A new 40th anniversary mix of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas? will see the young and old voices of the charity single’s artists come together to create an “ultimate” version.
Do They Know It’s Christmas? – 2024 Ultimate Mix will premiere on UK breakfast radio and streaming on November 25, the 40th anniversary of the recording of the original song, and will be released physically on the Band Aid Compilation on November 29 on CD and vinyl.
The new version of the song will feature voices from three previous editions of the song, Band Aid (1984), Band Aid 20 (2004) and Band Aid 30 (2014), including Harry Styles, George Michael and Chris Martin, and will see young and old voices of the likes of Bono singing together.
It will be produced by Trevor Horn, who has worked with the likes of Grace Jones, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Sir Rod Stewart.
The singers will be backed by the Band Aid house band of Paul McCartney, Sting, John Taylor (bass), Phil Collins, Roger Taylor, Danny Goffey (drums), Thom Yorke (piano), Paul Weller, Damon Albarn, Midge Ure, Johnny Greenwood, Gary Kemp and Justin Hawkins (guitar).
The compilation it features on will be made up of the new mix, along with the original Band Aid, Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30 versions of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, plus the Live Aid Wembley 1985 version.
A new video by Oliver Murray, who created the video for The Beatles’ 2023 single Now And Then, will accompany the song, featuring David Bowie introducing the song’s stars and Michael Buerk’s BBC news report on the song.
At the age of 93, artist Sir Peter Blake has returned to design a new cover for the latest version, having designed the original Band Aid sleeve in 1984, featuring a collage of standard Christmas card tropes set against the disgrace of a hungry child.
A minimum of £5 will be donated to the Band Aid Trust when the single is sold on vinyl, a minimum of £1.50 will be donated when the single is sold on CD, and when the single is downloaded in a digital format, a minimum 50p will be donated.
The original Band Aid single saw artists join forces in 1984, led by Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof and Ultravox’s Midge Ure to help charities working with starving children in Ethiopia.
Do They Know It’s Christmas? went straight to number one that year and became the fastest-selling single of all time in the UK, selling a million copies in the first week alone.
It remained at number one for five weeks, going on to sell more than three million copies.
The song’s records were eventually beaten in 1997 by Sir Elton John’s double A-side of Candle In The Wind and Something About The Way You Look Tonight, released after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
A new version, Band Aid II, followed in 1989, produced by Stock Aitken and Waterman which featuring just two of the artist’s from the song’s first iteration in Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward of Bananarama.
Band Aid 20 and Band Aid 30 were then released on the 20th and 30th anniversary years of the song respectively, with Band Aid 20 benefiting Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. Proceeds from Band Aid 30 went to help with the 2014 Ebola crisis.
All versions of the song entered the UK singles chart at number one.
It comes after the BBC announced a new documentary – The Making Of Do They Know It’s Christmas? – would unearth 75 minutes of original footage, shot on 16mm film, showing how the song was recorded over the course of one day at a studio in London.
The programme will air on BBC Four on November 29 at 9pm.
