In 1994, Brit-pop heavyweights like
Blur,
Oasis, and
Suede contributed to a charity album that raised millions of dollars for children affected by the war in Bosnia. In 2005 the War Child organization has once again tapped the country's contemporary music scene, this to support battle-scarred and otherwise damaged children everywhere. Participants in
Help: A Day in the Life include
Radiohead (the haunting, previously unreleased "I Want None of It"),
Coldplay (a remixed "How You See the World"), and
Damien Rice (the typically lovely "Cross-Eyed Bear"), as well as Sudanese MC and former child soldier conscript
Emmanuel Jal, who contributes the exuberant, hopeful "Gua." Great Britain's bright young breed is also represented in
Maximo Park's "Wasteland," "Gone Are the Days" from
Magic Numbers, and
Go! Team's "Phantom Broadcast." Elsewhere on
Help: A Day in the Life --
Keane drifting through a thorny "Yellow Brick Road,"
Kaiser Chiefs putting some weird herky-jerky spunk into "Heard It Through the Grapevine," and
Bloc Party with "The Present." ~ Johnny Loftus