Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Remember the boy band Hanson from the 1990s, the slapped together band of three teenage brothers who played shamelessly bubbly popular music? Think back to the song Mmmm Bop. Did I get the right number of Ms in the title?

Anyway, Hanson is still around, and they’ve recently done a little something that’s worthy of note. They’ve tried to use their boy band power for good.

The three brothers wrote a song called The Great Divide, and agreed to donate all of the profits from the download of the song from ITunes to the Perinatal HIV Research Unit in Soweto, South Africa.

Whatever you think about the quality of Hanson’s music, making this effort is a great thing for them to do. Sure, it brings Hanson extra publicity, which is needed now that Hanson is not really a boy band anymore. They’re a young man band, I guess, which tends to thrill the 12 year-old girl market not quite so much. Still, that publicity is deserved, isn’t it?

I’ll tell you the truth about The Great Divide: I watched the video, and I wasn’t really impressed by the music. Nonetheless, I thank Hanson for making the song available. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have found out about the Perinatal HIV Research Unit.

I’d like to be able to say that, because of finding out about the unit, I’ve made a donation to support their work, but, unfortunately, I haven’t found a way on the organization’s web site to make an online donation. If anyone who can show me a way to send them money securely, I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I’ll make a donation to UNICEF, which partners with the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, and does a heck of a lot of other good work to boot.

You see, as much as I respect Hanson’s motivations and work with The Great Divide, I just can’t stand the idea of putting the song in my ITunes library. Sorry, boys.