even though the front page news has shifted, haiti still remains a mess. macgowan and johnny depp took their sweet time assembling and releasing this alternative-star jam that includes: the great shane macgowan, johnny depp, nick cave, the clash’s mick jones, chrissie hynde, glen matlock, paloma faith, and others. to quote amrit at stereogum,

“their cover of screamin’ jay hawkins’ i put a spell on you benefits the dublin based concern worldwide, who have been in haiti for 16 years. depp is mostly charged with looking cool and fingering a guitar solo (that isn’t at all the guitar solo on the recording, but who cares he’s so pretty), the rest lay down vocals on a song that doesn’t so obviously address the state and need of the haitian people through self-aggrandized posturing (“everybody hurts”; “we are the world”, and so on) and is all the more effective for it. seems to be more like, let’s get together, realize our place in this thing, smoke a cigarette, remind ourselves that we can still do a little something to help without being patronizing assholes about it.”

well put. we couldn’t have said it better. track available march 7th. by cdc