War Child HELP (2) (various artists)
Benefit albums will always have a place in music, primarily because we humans can’t stop being cruel to each other. And when we committee those horrible acts, it’s innocents – too often, children – that end up suffering the most. According to relief organization War Child, nearly 20% of the world’s children – our children – are currently affected by war (that’s 520 million kids, a number that’s nearly doubled over the past 30 years). Since 1993, War Child UK has made it their mission to help those kids, both in the short term (food and shelter) and the long (education and recovery). In 1995, the organization released an album, HELP, recorded in one 24-hour period by some of Britain’s best musicians to help fund the cause. Three decades later, the group is back at it (and none too soon, given a new round of shooting and killing in and around Iran to join the conflicts in Ukraine, Sudan, and far too many other places). HELP(2) arrives as more children need our attention each day.
The format for HELP(2) remains similar to that of its predecessor – recorded over a limited time period (in this case, one week at London’s famed Abbey Road Studios), with a collection of top tier (and largely British) artists. And, like last time, these aren’t throwaway tracks, but a collection of freshly finished songs and inspired covers. The lead track (and biggest attention getter) on the collection is the first new Arctic Monkeys song in four years, “Opening Night.” The band joined the project shortly after producer and longtime collaborator James Ford signed on to oversee HELP(2). The result is a slowburner of a song that frontman Alex Turner began working on roughly 15 years ago. It serves as a sort of reintroduction for the band, while also bringing a suitable amount of gravity – “Tonight is heavy on one side, sort of like/A set of cherry red and white loaded dice” – to the cause at hand.
Another feature of the HELP(2) project is the direct involvement of children. Kids were included in the recording of the album and given cameras (and free rein) to wander about the studio and capture the musicians at work. The album trailer (link below) also includes footage shot by children in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen and Sudan – places ravaged by war, but also full of kids who still want nothing more than to play. Kids also show up in the album, most prominently as a chorus on the Damon Albarn/Grian Chatten/Kae Tempest collab, “Flags,” a song seething with post-capitalist angst – “The flags are breezing with a brand new feeling/Expensive seats full of abandoned reason.”
Other highlights of HELP(2) include a gorgeously understated cover of Sinead O’Connor’s “Black Boys on Mopeds” from Fontaines D.C. O’Connor appeared on the original HELP album, and her fellow Irishmen bring her simmering anger – “Remember what I told you/If they hated me, they will hate you” – all the way to 2026. English singer-songwriter Bats for Lashes also recalls O’Connor (in this case, vocally) in a near a cappella performance of “Carried my girl,” a heartbreaker all too apropos of the topic at hand – “I carried my girl across the desert/But not one person noticed her death” – capped with the eerie refrain, “All our babies, they’re all our babies.” And we Americans show up well. New tracks from Big Thief (“Relive, Redie”) and Geese’s Cameron Winter (“Warning’) make a mark, but the last impression comes from the album’s final track, Olivia Rodrigo’s cover of The Magnetic Fields’ hypnotic “The Book of Love.” Her take on the song, which includes Blur’s Graham Coxon on acoustic guitar, adds subtle strings, fleshing out a simple tune while never once going for Big Singer Energy. Rodrigo, by covering a song that dates back to a time shortly after the first album was released, represents a new generation of artists who have more than streaming numbers in mind when they make music.
Additional artists on HELP(2) include Black Country, New Road, The Last Dinner Party, Beth Gibbons, Arooj Aftab, Beck, King Krule, Depeche Mode, Ezra Collective, Greentea Peng, Arlo Parks, English Teacher, Beabadoobee, Young Fathers, Pulp, Sampha, Wet Leg, Foals, Anna Calvi, Ellie Roswell, Nilufer Yanya and Dove Ellis.
Go here to order/stream HELP(2), out March 6: https://warchildrecs.ffm.to/help2
For more info on War Child, go here: https://www.warchild.org.uk/
Check out the album trailer here: