According to music critic and Bruce Springsteen biographer Dave Marsh, "We Are the World" was not widely accepted within the rock music community. The author revealed that the song was "despised" for what it was not: "a rock record, a critique of the political policies that created the famine, a way of finding out how and why famines occur, an all-inclusive representation of the entire worldwide spectrum of post-Presley popular music". Marsh revealed that he felt some of the criticisms were right, while others were silly. He claimed that despite the sentimentality of the song, "We Are the World" was a large-scale pop event with serious political overtones.