Bob Geldof's back with song for Ebola, but not everyone's cheering

He became the face of a famine, and in the process transformed himself from a Boomtown Rat into Saint Bob, global philanthropic icon.

Thirty years after he brought together Britain and Ireland's biggest music stars for Band Aid, then the world's biggest stars for the Live Aid concert - eventually raising more than US$150 million to fight hunger in Ethiopia - Bob Geldof is back in the headlines, with a plan to resurrect the music-for-charity concept yet again.

The original Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas, is to be recorded for the fourth time. The goal? Raising money to tackle Ebola in West Africa.

But not everyone is cheering.

Nick Dearden, director of the World Development Movement, is not a fan of "Band Aid 30", which Geldof unveiled last Monday. "The question is whether this song will actually encourage an understanding of what's happening in West Africa and build towards the political solutions needed, or whether it will simply reinforce tired and unhelpful stereotypes," Dearden wrote in The Guardian on Tuesday.

Geldof was just another rock star in 1984, the Irish lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, best known for the nihilistic hit I Don't Like Mondays (about a real-life playground shooting).