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peggy
19 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 00:22
I heard Johnny Cash do a ripper version of Neil Diamond's 'Solitary Man'

I'm certainly no Neil Diamond fan but Johnny gave me a new found respect for this particular number.
Son Of Alice
41 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 00:28
This is the thread I've been waiting for. Just off the top of my head:

You Really Got Me - Van Halen

Live And Let Die - Guns 'n Roses ( hell, about half of G'nR's all-covers album The Spaghetti Incident:
Since I Don't Have You/Down On The Farm/Human Being/Ain't It Fun/Hair Of The Dog/I Don't Care About You

A few from Nazareth: The Ballad Of Hollis Brown, Teenage Nervous Breakdown, This Flight Tonight

W.A.S.P. did some great ones: I Don't Need No Doctor, The Real Me, Easy Living, Mississippi Queen, and their best one, Paint It Black

And I may be in a minority of one, but I actually like Cope's version of Five O'Clock World.

xxoo
SOA
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

Jonathon
Jan 06, 2003, 10:07
...htere were also a couple of originals in there. Hmmm...time for a Modern Lovers thread....?
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

There Is A Light
Jan 06, 2003, 10:08
Should be by Schnieder TM. If it's not, they did a smashing version of it, too.
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 10:10
Stutter was pretty good. However, it's the two factory records that should be their lasting legacy not bloody Sit Down '92 or whatever.
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

REM
Jan 06, 2003, 10:11
But their 'Superman' is pretty good
anthonyqkiernan
anthonyqkiernan
7087 posts

Neil Diamond
Jan 06, 2003, 10:13
He's a strange case. I think he writes really good songs. It's just difficult for him to do them in anyother stylee than soft seventies mid-country bollocks. Other people do them better.

Unfortuntely, we do have a generation of folk that write like him. This not being the quality of the songs, just hte awful style.
emperor tom ketchup
emperor tom ketchup
106 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 11:46
Just listening to an album of psychedelic funk called Paint It Black with an amzing version of same by a group caled Africa - a mad 8 minute tribal psych out - its half covers but some of them aren't so good - like Muddy Waters Let's Spend The Night Together or the Supremes COme Together which are fun but no more.
Lord Lucan
Lord Lucan
2702 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 13:30
This is a great thread. I think the word 'unexpected' is a clue to why the cover versions mentioned so far are great. Most cover versions are lazy carbon copies which are morally and sonically bankrupt. The few that succeed seem to do so because they offer a radically different take on the song, either musically or in the interpretation of the lyrics, or both. And so they should, otherwise what's the point? (Unless you're a pop svengali promoting a toothy squeaky-clean kiddie with no writing talent, of course.) Anyway, a few more which fit into the 'unexpected' category...

The Breeders - Happiness is a Warm Gun
(This somehow is elevated by Kim Deal, Tanya Donelly and Josephine Wiggs' sardonic delivery to be a far more distainful comment on sex than the Beatles' original.)

Siouxsie & the Banshees - Trust In Me
(from their album of cover versions which on the whole is pretty rubbish, but taking this song from Jungle Book and turning it into a psychotic seduction by Medusa was inspired.)

My Bloody Valentine - We Have All the Time in the World
(This appeared on a freebie cassette with some music paper years ago. I lost the tape a long time ago now, and as far as I know this cover version is unavailable elsewhere. Anyway, it worked brilliantly with MBV's hazy laziness making it sound more like a love song to Heroin rather than a Bond girl.)

The Human League - You've Lost That Loving Feeling
(on their first album, way before the electro-pop kicked in. Originally done by various sixties luminaries such as The Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, and... er, Cilla Black. Oakey & co manage to make it sound like the most depressing song in the world: The soundtrack to the life slowly ebbing away from a freezing suicide. Unsettling is an understatement.)

Someone mentioned Fischerspooner's version of Wire's The 15th. I heard it a while ago and thought it was as pointless as Fischerspooner themselves. It's a carbon copy. WHAT'S THE POINT?

Oh, and to add to the This Mortal Coil discussion above. Anyone who likes 'I am the Cosmos' and 'You and your Sister' from the Blood album should invest in the original Chris Bell album they both come from. I've been listening to it loads recently and it rocks like a bastard and inspires tears in equal measure.
elderford
482 posts

Re: Unexpected cover versions
Jan 06, 2003, 15:27
my favourite, with the emphasis on 'unexpected', is

'heartbreak hotel' by john cale

sends shivers up the spine, cale's vocal sounds like a man who is alone and desperate and the backing is unrelenting, he really is living on lonely street.
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