Country: Worldwide
Format: CD & VINYL
Release: 09-09-1995
Catalogue:

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notes: Radiohead have recorded a new song, 'Lucky', which they're writing in the studio. They changed their travel plans (USA tour with REM starts that week) to record the track. Guitarist Ed O'Brien said, "We get asked to donate a lot of tracks to charity records, but in this case the music is actually going to be heard by people over there. It's very easy to be cynical about music, but I think it is one of those things that actually unites people".On September 4th 1995 some of the best bands and musicians in Britain entered studios all over Europe. Their intention was that by the end of the day they would each have recorded a track for this album, with the aim of raising money for and focusing, attention on, the children caught up in the war in former Yugoslavia. This album was a result of everyone’s HELP. Monday Sept 4th 1995 - The cream of British Pop recording exclusive tracks against the clock in recording studios around the UK. Tuesday Sept 5th 1995 - Masters cut and flown to Blackburn for cut of CD and Holland for cassette Wednesday Sept 6th 1995 - The first run of three hundred thousand copies of the album manufactured Thursday Sept 7th 1995 - Albums delivered to PolyGram's North London distribution centre Friday Sept 8th 1995 - 'HELP' distributed to record stores throughout Britain Saturday Sept 9th 1995 - 'HELP' on sale from 9.00am. Released on 9 September 1995, less than one week after more than twenty groups entered the studios to record their contributions, this album - the brainchild of Tony Crean and Andy McDonald of Go! Discs - had raised enough money to enable War Child to carry out aid projects in Bosnia Hercegovina: HELP went straight into the charts at No 1 after one days sales! This sets a virtually unbeatable record for the fastest-selling Number One album. HELP notched up sales of more than 71,000 on its first day in the shops. It is the fastest recorded studio album as well as being the fastest Number One, taking a mere six days from when recording began on Monday to reaching the top of the charts the following Saturday. In its first three days in the shops, album sales raised nearly two million pounds, which was used to provide humanitarian aid for young victims of the war in Bosnia..

The Sunday Telegraph:

Put aside all your preconceptions about charity albums - this record would be worth buying even if its profits weren't going towards Bosnian war victims. Though each of its tracks, by everyone from Blur and Oasis to Massive Attack and Orbital, was recorded in only a day, you'd rarely guess it from the quality of the material. How good it is to hear the Stone Roses, whose last album was five years in the making, jerked from their customary lassitude to such fine effect with their raw, bluesy version of Love Spreads. How amazing that Portishead, so reliant on time-consuming studio wizadry, could yet dash off a song as shimmeringly complex as Mourning Air (War Child). And what a relief to discover that Sinead O'Connor, whose magnificent cover of Bobby Gentry's Ode to Billy Joe vies with Radiohead's Lucky for best track, has not lost the plot completely. The many who rushed out to buy the album "blind", making it the fastest-selling LP of all time, are in for a very pleasant surprise