It took patience, plenty of false-starts and a bit of cosmic timing for Help(2) to come to life. “The universe had to finally align,” says Rich Clarke, head of music at War Child, whose team had long dreamed of marking the 30th anniversary of the original Help, the era-defining charity album featuring Paul McCartney, Oasis, Sinéad O’Connor and Radiohead, with a new star-studded compilation.

Released in September 1995, Help was recorded in one day, with Brian Eno at the helm. It was nominated for both a BRIT Award and the Mercury Prize, sold 70,000 copies on its first day, and raised £1.25 million ($1.68 million) for children affected by the Bosnian conflict of the mid-’90s. Its success stands as a benchmark that no subsequent charity LP in the U.K. has managed to replicate since.

The move to make a second charity compilation, says Clarke, came from the severity of the current humanitarian crises in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Syria, as well as civil wars across Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Congo. War Child estimates that the number of children affected globally by war has jumped from one in 10 when the Help(2)’s predecessor was released, to one in five today, around 520 million children.

Revisiting the Help series was not a decision taken lightly. Clarke notes that while War Child has a presence in the live arena (their BRITs Week shows raise substantial funds for the charity), the dynamics of the music industry has changed and that compilation LPs are something of a rarity.

Throughout the 2000s, War Child put out several compilations (featuring works by David Bowie, Muse and George Michael) but none of them hit similar heights, largely because they were released at a time when demand for physical music was declining, limiting commercial reach despite the stature of acts involved. Yet Help(2) arrives at a period of renewed growth, with the 2025 BPI figures reporting 7.6 million vinyl LPs and 9.7 million CDs sold in the U.K. last year.

Ongoing news of conflicts and artists speaking up encouraged Clarke that the time was right: “I think all of that builds to a point where artists go, ‘Actually, I’m going to take action – and this is how I’m going to do it.’ Asking a songwriter to write a great song is the best way of making use of their skills,” he notes.

When the decision to press on with Help(2) came the logistics almost became too complex for Clarke and his team to untangle: touring cycles clashed, and acts had their own recording time booked. Their fortunes would change when “three bits of good news” came within a week towards the end of 2025: producer James Ford – who had previously been approached for the project prior to a personal health scare – signed up, as did Arctic Monkeys and Fontaines D.C., two of the most influential modern rock acts to have come out of the U.K. and Ireland this side of the millennium.

“We decided that if we were going to make something like this, it would be a legacy piece as opposed to a random collection of songs,” Clarke explains. “The name on the top of everyone’s lips here was James. He was the missing puzzle piece we needed to move forward.”

Ford’s outsized influence on contemporary music came into full focus as the tracklist came together for Help(2). The collaborative effort, which lands on Mar. 6, spans 23 tracks and features several other acts that he has worked with, including Geese’s Cameron Winter, Depeche Mode, Wet Leg and The Last Dinner Party. There are also appearances from Olivia Rodrigo, Ezra Collective, English Teacher and Kae Tempest, among many others. The sheer breadth of talent underscores just how remarkable and carefully curated the record is. 

The majority of the featured artists descended upon London’s Abbey Road Studios last November, where concurrent recordings led to a number of unexpected collaborations over the course of a week. Most of the tracks are new and original songs, a challenge set by Clarke to match the original’s high quality. There were also dozens of young children running riot, filming the sessions through handheld cameras under the supervision of Jonathan Glazer, the Oscar-winning director of The Zone of Interest. 

The laid-back atmosphere of the sessions created an open-door feel, with other acts wandering in and out as they pleased. Speaking to Billboard UK, Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker recalls entering Abbey Road’s Studio Two after lunch one afternoon to find Blur and Gorillaz leader Damon Albarn working on a fresh demo.

He soon found himself catching up with Johnny Marr – formerly of The Smiths – a friend he “had not seen for a very long time,” before being introduced to Kae Tempest, Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten and Carl Barât of The Libertines. In a moment of spontaneity, all four voices came together to contribute backing vocals to Pulp’s fervent “Begging for Change” track.

A sense of inclusion was pivotal throughout, continues Cocker. “Bands have always been competitive with each other, or least certainly back in the days when I first started doing music,” he says. “It felt important to just put anything like that aside, and realize that everybody’s working towards the same thing and you can actually help each other out. It was a really good week.”

Pulp have long maintained a uniquely meaningful relationship with War Child. In 1996, the band’s album Different Class was nominated for the Mercury Prize alongside the original Help compilation. After winning the award, Cocker praised the work of War Child, and donated the £25,000 ($33,700) prize money to the charity during his acceptance speech. As such, it was a “no-brainer” to accept Ford’s offer to join Help(2), he says, explaining that the album was an opportunity for the band to use their platform for something far bigger than themselves. 

“Childhood is such an important time: it’s when you learn how to be a human being, and that’s a difficult thing, even more so when living in a war zone,” Cocker says. “For a child to grow to be an adult in a place surrounded by chaos, or to try and get an education while feeling in danger all the time… you have to do what you can to try and provide some respite for them from that.”

Following an uphill battle to turn Help(2) from idea to reality in its earlier stages, the War Child team soon faced a new, unforeseen challenge that nearly set the project off course. A week before the Abbey Road sessions took place, Ford – who was diagnosed with Acute Leukaemia towards the end of 2024 – was rushed into an intensive care unit, where he would need to remain for an extended period of time.

With the clock ticking on a non-movable studio booking, there was no room to postpone. A team of external producers and engineers were drafted in under the supervision of Transgressive Records co-founder Toby L, who stepped up to help with day-to-day operations at Abbey Road while also guiding tracklisting and A&R decisions. “People moved mountains to make these sessions happen,” says Clarke. “It was the sort of collective spirit that reaffirms your faith in community, particularly in an industry as fragmented as music can be.”

As Ford’s condition stabilised and he moved into recovery after receiving a blood transfusion, he found a way back into the room. From his hospital bed, as his strength gradually returned, he resumed his role via Zoom in order to oversee production in real time, offering arrangement notes and weighing in on mixes. Seemingly, the circumstances surrounding the completion of Help(2) only deepened its meaning as a testament to resilience in the face of adversity and emotional hardship.

“As a patient, remotely attending some of these sessions made me feel attached to the real world. Making sure I was part of finishing the album was beneficial for my state of mind,” says Ford. “There was this feeling of responsibility that made me want to go above and beyond my own situation at the time. But it was pretty heartbreaking to not be in the room and hang out with people that I know and love – it was like missing my own personal Glastonbury!”

This mode of working forced Ford to expand his approach in ways he might never have explored under normal circumstances. Having been involved in Arctic Monkeys’ output consistently since 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, Ford counts frontman Alex Turner as one of his closest collaborators, and the pair sent each other passages of the band’s track “Opening Night” via text. 

Through this process, the track evolved into the “obvious lead single” for Help(2), thanks to its grand, expansive sonic feel and how its title carries a declarative weight. When it was released in January, it marked Arctic Monkeys’ first song in four years; the band have been on hiatus since they wrapped up a long-running world tour for seventh record The Car in autumn 2023.

Ford also credits Olivia Rodrigo with bringing a fresh perspective to a cover of The Magnetic Fields’ classic “The Book Of Love,” accompanied by Blur’s Graham Coxon on guitar. “I talked Olivia into doing what we were calling a ‘Sinatra-style’ take, which was recording live with a string section,” he explains. “She was such a pro and was happy to take a gung-ho approach to it – she just walked into the studio and nailed it.”

He continues: “I was in the hospital with my headphones on, and I could press my space bar on my laptop and talk to everyone in the studio. It was a very surreal experience, but one that gave me such a warm, fuzzy feeling of pride towards what we were achieving together.”

Above all else, everyone involved takes pride in what Help(2) represents: a bold declaration that artists can still unite around a cause to make a tangible difference, and to advocate passionately for the values driving it. All participating acts have donated the master rights to their Help(2) tracks in perpetuity, while publisher Beggars Group played a key role in coordinating logistics to bring everything together. Or, as Clarke puts it, “threw the kitchen sink at it all in order for the album to make a big impact” as well as waiving their distributor fees.

Ford adds, “It’s pretty hard to be hopeful in the modern world – there’s a lot of ruin in it. But what else have we got?” 

He lets the thought linger for a moment, then adds, “I don’t really have anything else in my life that gives me hope, apart from music, quite honestly. It’s something that I value so deeply. If a little bit of that feeling translates to other people through this project, then that’s the best anyone can hope for.”