Hear 'N Aid: An All-Star Album for Famine Relief (1985)

In the mid 1980's there were a number of benefit projects done in the music world to raise money for various causes, most notably famine relief in Africa.  Of course there was Live-Aid, a huge benefit concert including a number of famous bands.  Then there were the one-off projects like Band Aid ("Do They Know it's Christmas?") and USA for Africa ("We are the World").  A lesser known project was comprised of metal and hard rock musicians and was called Hear 'N Aid.

Hear 'N Aid recorded one song, a track called "Stars", which was written by Ronnie James Dio and his band members Vivian Campbell and Jimmy Bain.  The song features lead vocals from Dio, Eric Bloom (Blue Öyster Cult), Don Dokken, Kevin DuBrow (Quiet Riot), Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Dave Meniketti (Y&T), Paul Shortino (Rough Cutt) and Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche).  Backing vocals were provided by members from a number of bands from the time period including W.A.S.P., Night Ranger, Journey and really oddly, Spinal Tap.  Michael McKean and Harry Shearer appeared in character as David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls respectively. 

The song was a fairly generic straightforward rocker in the vein of Dio songs like "Rainbow in the Dark" and "Holy Diver".  The vocals are impressive enough given the talent involved, but the best part is absolutely the competing guitar solos provided by Campbell, Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot), Buck Dharma (Blue Öyster Cult), Brad Gillis (Night Ranger), Craig Goldy (Giuffria), George Lynch (Dokken), Yngwie Malmsteen, Eddie Ojeda (Twisted Sister) and Neal Schon (Journey).  The shredding solos are the highlight of the entire album, much less the song.  The rest of the music was performed by members of Dio, Iron Maiden and Quiet Riot.  I said it was generic, but that in no way means it is bad.  It is a decent song, but the most interesting aspect is definitely the back story, and not so much the song itself.

"Stars" was released in two formats: a single and a compilation album.  This is the compilation album.  Unfortunately, the rest of the compilation fails to live up to the song.  It is mostly a collection of live tracks from groups like Accept, Motörhead, Rush, Scorpions, Kiss and others.  But it is kind of an odd collection of tracks.  Most of them are lesser-known songs from the bands.  For instance, we have "Up to the Limit" from Accept and "On the Road" from Motörhead.  The only one that makes much sense is "The Zoo" from Scorpions, which is a classic track from the band, but was several years old at the time this album was released.  The Jimi Hendrix song makes even less sense as he had been dead for almost 20 years by the time this came out.

Ultimately, the album is worth checking out just for "Stars".  It might be better to just track down the single, if you are really interested, or just check out Youtube.