Bob Geldof today announced the line-up for Band Aid 30, which will vie for this year's Christmas No 1.

Singing the charity track will be stars such as Adele, Bastille, Ellie Goulding and One Direction.

Other participants named so far also include Sam Smith, Jessie Ware, Paloma Faith, Ollie Murs, Ed Sheeran, Emeli Sande and Paloma Faith.

Written by Geldof and Midge Ure of Ultravox, Do They Know It's Christmas? was first performed in 1984 by a mix of artists including Paul McCartney and Phil Collins. It raised £8 million, which went towards relief work in famine-struck Ethiopia.

In 2004, the single was re-recorded by a modern line-up, this time to raise funds for Darfur in Sudan.

Now, thirty years since the original version was released, it's set to hit the charts once again, this time to raise funds for the Ebola crisis in West Africa.

"This is the worst kept secret in the world. We will reconvene nearly 30 years to the day," Geldof said at a press conference in London on Monday.

"Three weeks ago I got a call from the UN saying they required a 20 per cent increase across the board. They are very concerned about the situation in West Africa.

"I don't like doing this stuff, it's quite embarrassing calling people you don't know, but it was that more than anything else that those people needed to be supported across the board, not just the people suffering from this filthy little virus."

Band Aid isn't without its critics, however.  The initiative and other charity efforts like it came under fire from Oxfam in 2012 for portraying Africa as "hopeless".

In a survey undertaken by the charity, 60 per cent of respondents said they had become desensitised to images of hunger and disease, and almost half said they thought conditions would never improve in the developing world.

"We've come a long way since the 1980s and Band Aid's Do They Know it's Christmas?  We need to shrug off the old stereotypes and celebrate the continent's diversity and complexity," chief executive Dame Barbara Stocking said at the time.

"The relentless focus on ongoing problems at the expense of a more nuanced portrait of the continent, is obscuring the progress that is being made towards a more secure and prosperous future.

"If we want people to help fight hunger we have to give them grounds for hope by showing the potential of countries across Africa; it's a natural instinct to turn away from suffering when you feel you can do nothing to alleviate it."

Geldof, however, has urged people to get behind the single.

"It is something wonderful that this country reaches out," he said today.

"It really doesn't matter if you hate this song or you don't like this song, you have to buy this thing."

The charity single will be released on November 17. Downloads will cost 99p.