Ian Leslie writes about The Greatest Night in Pop, a documentary about the making of "We Are The World." The opening paragraphs:
The Netflix documentary, The Greatest Night In Pop, tells the story of the making of We Are The World, the 1985 charity single featuring (almost) everyone in American pop at the time: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Dionne Warwick…the list goes on and on.
The documentary is based on hours of footage from the night they recorded the single, only a few minutes of which was used for the original music video. The Greatest Night In Pop (TGNIP) came out eighteen months ago, and while millions of people have viewed it, I’m constantly surprised to learn that many have not. Everyone should.
If I had to recommend a documentary or just ‘something to watch on TV’ for absolutely anyone - man or woman, old or young, liberal or conservative, highbrow or lowbrow - I’d recommend The Greatest Night In Pop. It may not be the deepest, most profound ninety minutes of TV, but it is irresistibly enjoyable. And actually, like the best pop, it is deep; it just doesn’t pretend to be.
Diversity and roles:
I’ve written before about how diversity needs to be interpreted beyond demographic attributes like race and gender to temperament and personality. The British management researcher Meredith Belbin constructed a famous inventory of behavioural types which together make up a successful team: the Resource Investigator, the Coordinator, the Shaper, the Catalyst, and so on.
TGNIP prompted me to come up with an inventory of my own: the Decider, the Connector, the Conscience, the Old Buck, the Disrupter, the Weirdo, and the Lover.
The players:
- The Decider: Quincy Jones
- The Connector: Lionel Richie
- The Conscience: Bob Geldof
- The Old Buck: Smokey robinson
- The Disrupter: Stevie Wonder
- The Weirdo: Bob Dylan
- The Lover: Diana Ross
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