Band Aid

Band Aid was a charity supergroup formed in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money and awareness for famine relief in Ethiopia. Its formation was a direct response to news coverage of the devastating famine, and it brought together dozens of prominent British and Irish musicians who set aside their individual careers for a single collaborative cause, an approach that was largely unprecedented in popular music at the time.

The project's flagship single, «Do They Know It's Christmas?», featured a rotating list of vocalists from acts including Bananarama, Culture Club, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Sting, U2, Status Quo, Phil Collins and Paul McCartney, among many others. Its massive commercial success helped inspire related charitable initiatives, most notably Live Aid the following year, and established a template for charity singles that would be repeated for decades afterward.

Band Aid was revived multiple times with new lineups of contemporary artists, including Band Aid II in 1989, Band Aid 20 in 2004 and Band Aid 30 in 2014, each recording an updated version of the song for a new generation while keeping the original charitable mission at its center. The project remains one of the most significant examples of the music industry mobilizing collectively around a humanitarian cause.