h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The point about chart sales in the UK does stand though, Kaz, seeing as the UK was both the host of the G8 summit and the primary target for the Live8 and Make Poverty History campaigns. As a public figure, Bob Geldof was the biggest name on that stage - as Galaxy Babe's entry hopefully shows, he's had a long and varied career that extends way beyond his history with the Boomtown Rats (whose 'I Don't Like Mondays' remains one of the biggest anthems in chart music since the 1960s). Yousou N'Dour is critically acclaimed as an artist but despite strong sales worldwide is not a familiar name to most people. In fact, Youssou N'Dour had more press as a response to his exclusion from Live8 than his music has generated in the last decade, outside of specialist magazines. By no means fair, but sadly true.

I totally agree that it's a shame the Live8 events couldn't have made more of African, South American and Asian music, but I'm not at all surprised that they didn't. Even with the rise of popularity in Bollywood and the efforts of Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon to bring more exposure to those musicians, 'World' music is still very much a niche that is less likely to attract attention than a populist concert involving some of the biggest names in Western pop music.

But surely it's far better to have attempted something on the scale of Live8 and to be viewed as not succeeding than to have not tried in the first place?