We had some friends over a while ago and while chatting about music UrbanSteeetPirate mentioned he doesn't like covers (a version of a song performed by someone other than the original artist. ) I was astonished, I assumed everyone liked them. Why else would there be so many?
Certainly, I'm perhaps a teensy too fond of them, a possibility brought out later that same evening when another friend asked, rather sharply, "How many version of Homosapien do you have?" Uhm, three? Four?
I have everything from Dusty Springfield covering Dionne Warwick's Anyone Who Had a Heart (sweet) to Cyndi Lauper doing a bang-up version of Disco Inferno (burn that mutha down.) What's not to love about a remixed Sarah Vaughn singing the theme from Peter Gunn? Triple points there, I think. I even stand guilty of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus cover of Dancing Queen.
Is it wrong?
It's the rare cover that I actually like, though there are a few. I'll tell you one I hate, though, and that is Gwen Stefani's version of Talk Talk's "It's My Life". Way to take a brilliant song and turn it into a pile of crap. Bitch.
ReplyDeleteOh, now I must lay down.
Oh great, now I have to go listen to it, cause I can't even think of what it sounds like. I blame you.
ReplyDeleteWell, given that I think that Dame Shirley Bassey's "Get the Party Started" is the greatest work of vocal art since the heyday of Renata Tebaldi, I'm firmly on the side of cover-dom.
ReplyDelete(La Lauper's "Disco Inferno" is downloading even as I type...)
Oh DEAR GOD, that Stefani shit is awful. I didn't say I liked all covers. I'd forgotten how much I liked the original.
ReplyDeleteI do love the Bassey treatment of that. And where did I first hear about it? Fabulon.
ReplyDeletenot at all wrong! I love love love covers! Now I'm going to have to seek out this Cyndi Lauper cover of Disco Inferno of which you speak.
ReplyDeleteI'll be seeing her in concert next month actually....I hope she does it, but I'm sure she won't.
I can't comment right now as it's got me thinking off-topic about crap remakes of great classic films.
ReplyDelete*joins Thom on fainting couch*
Scissor Sisters doing Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb
ReplyDeleteShirley Bassey doing Pink's Lets get The Party Started
Shelby Lynn doing Dionne Warwick/Dusty Springfield's Anyone Who Had A Heart
Linda Ronstadt doing Elvis Costello's Alison
Prince doing Joni Mitchell's A Case Of You
Marc Almond doing Gene Pitney's Backstage I'm Lonely
Julie London doing Sinatra's The Good Life
Jeff Buckley doing Leonard Cohen's
Hallelujah
Greenday doing John Lennon's Working Class Hero
Rufus Wainwright doing The Beatles Acroos The Universe
Annie Lennox doing Procol Harum's Whiter Dhade Of Pale
I am COVER CRAZY. DO you want me to go on?
Love to you & R Man...
Jeisean
ReplyDeleteOh, you and your fabulous, fabulous life.
MJ
Thombeau and you are such delicate blossoms, are not you?
Stephen
Eggzackly. For that matter, I have a whole album of two women singing acoustic versions of Pink Floyd. Fantastically wrong on so many levels.
I'm with Stephen on that Scissor Sisters cover, fo sho.
ReplyDeleteAlso, The Cardigans doing Black Sabbath covers is simply adorable.
Peenee - agreed.
ReplyDeleteThombeau - agreed.
The Nylons cover of Beatles "This Boy"
Lulu's cover of Aretha's "Oh Me Oh My (I'm A Fool For You Baby).
Nina Hagen's cover of Sinatra's "My Way".
But not, I repeat, NOT Sinatra's cover of Minelli's "New York, New York".