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Is Nico the John Barnes of Rock?
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keith a
9564 posts

Is Nico the John Barnes of Rock?
May 21, 2008, 17:42
I was just listening to the Rebel Rebel tribute to Bowie cd that was given away with this months Uncut, when a live Nico cover of Heroes came on.

My god. It's dreadful. It makes Sandy shaw's cover of Sympathy For The Devil sound like some classic cover! Trust me, Bubblehead! ; )

When she tunelessly wails the "I can remember..." bit (which in Bowie's hands is one of the great moments in music for me) slightly out of time, it sounded like some weird paradox - as if the one thing she couldn't remember were the actual words to the song. It was one small stop from "I, I can remember...er, what was it again?"

Anyway, it got me wondering why she's so revered, when she's like John Barnes, who played more bad games for the England footie team than anyone else I can think of. OK, he made that amazing run against Brazil all those years ago, and yes Nico graced the 1st Velvets LP (still one of the greatest albums ever IMO)...but what did either of them do afterwards?

One stood on the left wing, doing next to nothing, a shadow of what we hoped for. The other reduced your old favourites to some tuneless dirge, a shadow of their former selves.

Still, at least John Barnes played well at club level and could rap.

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