It was vice versa. "We are the world" was the rip off. The American celebrities were so horrified to find that European celebrities came up with a novel way to raise money for charity, leaving them in the dust. They had to do something and produced "We are the world", which was a worse song than "Do They Know It's Christmas?" IMHO
And "Do They Know ..." wasn't the best of songs, though it had a good beat to it. I was in a record store in a mall in PA in mid-1985, 6 months after (or before) Christmas, and the Band Aid tune was still in the racks, the sign below it's cubbyhole altered to read, "Do They Know It's NOT Christmas?"
Slightly off topic, I have a "We are the World" story too. I was in a bar once, and the synthesizer player was playing "WATW" and people were actually slow dancing like it's a love song, which it isn't.
Getting back to tired Christmas tunes, I don't really much care for "Grandma..." either. Perhaps because I don't get the notion of old ladies being trampled on by large bucks, from Milwaukee or elsewhere.
foreverfree
We arrrrreeeee the world, we arrrrrreeeee the chilldrrrun, we have the willlll to make a betttter day, so lets start givvvvvinnnnnn...
Rock on!!