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Sep. 21st, 2004 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileOkay, so I bought Q magazine last mont because it came with a free CD that looked interesting. Cover versions of songs by the 'greatest songwriters ever' supposedly. Actually, the track listing was pretty good but it's a hit and miss album. Among the tracks Bjork covers Ruby Baby by Leiber/Stoller, which is probably great for Bjork fans but makes me cringe; The Damned turn Help! into...well... a pile of shit actually, I like the Damned, but this isn't their finest moment; Stevie Ray Vaughan does a straight and uninteresting version of Superstition by Stevie Wonder and The Flying Burrito Brothers make possibly one of the finest songs ever written - Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones - sound like a cover by a really bad Bryan Adams tribute band. However...
There are some gems here however. Notably:
Joe Strummer covers Bob Marley's Redemption Song and makes it sound like something that should have been sung during Pirates of the Carribean with his steady, London accent sounding almost Cornish as he growls out lyrics like "Oh, pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, Minutes after they took I, From the bottomless pit." You kinda expect him to add an "Arrrrrr Jimlad!" at any moment.
Nick Cave covers Nico's All Tomorrow's Parties and turns it into a thundering drone of a song, much like... well, any Nick Cave song really.
Kathryn Williams covers Nirvana's All Apologies and almost makes it sound like it could have been sung by Eva Cassidy, up until the point where the spanish guitar starts to dance around like a bitch on heat. Strangely beautiful, much like the original.
The Langley Schools Music Project sounds like a comedy band name... until you listen to their cover of You're So Good To Me by the Beach Boys and you realise it's not a clever name at all. It's a bunch of school kids singing Beach Boys songs with lots of tambourine, triangle and xylophone accompanyment. Imagine, if you will, the kids who sing 'We don't need no education' on Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall breaking into the studio later that night to do rock covers. It's... odd but surprisingly hypnotic. The idea of blasting it out of your car while driving around the town is strangely amusing in an ironic kind of way.
Best of all, though, is the real masterpiece here. Neil Hannon (lead singer of The Divine Comedy) and Yann Tiersen's cover of David Bowie's Life on Mars. It's haunting, bare and scarily beautiful, with Hannon's voice rising and soaring, dropping into an echoing falsetto on occasion, over the stripped bare backing of Tiersen playing what -sounds- like glasses filled with various levels of water. Ever heard anyone play glasses? Well that's what it sounds like. It could be tubular bells I guess, but sounds too light for that, so I prefer to believe, enless evidence is presented to the contrary, that he's playing either glasses or milk bottles.
It's all rather odd but possibly the greatest cover version I've ever heard.
It got me thinking about other covers that have gone on to surpass the original versions of the same songs. A couple of examples spring to mind - Metallica's Whiskey in the Jar; the Fugees' Killing Me Softly; Johnny Cash's Hurt.
Can anyone else think of any other examples of superlative cover versions that are worth listening to?
There are some gems here however. Notably:
Joe Strummer covers Bob Marley's Redemption Song and makes it sound like something that should have been sung during Pirates of the Carribean with his steady, London accent sounding almost Cornish as he growls out lyrics like "Oh, pirates, yes, they rob I; Sold I to the merchant ships, Minutes after they took I, From the bottomless pit." You kinda expect him to add an "Arrrrrr Jimlad!" at any moment.
Nick Cave covers Nico's All Tomorrow's Parties and turns it into a thundering drone of a song, much like... well, any Nick Cave song really.
Kathryn Williams covers Nirvana's All Apologies and almost makes it sound like it could have been sung by Eva Cassidy, up until the point where the spanish guitar starts to dance around like a bitch on heat. Strangely beautiful, much like the original.
The Langley Schools Music Project sounds like a comedy band name... until you listen to their cover of You're So Good To Me by the Beach Boys and you realise it's not a clever name at all. It's a bunch of school kids singing Beach Boys songs with lots of tambourine, triangle and xylophone accompanyment. Imagine, if you will, the kids who sing 'We don't need no education' on Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall breaking into the studio later that night to do rock covers. It's... odd but surprisingly hypnotic. The idea of blasting it out of your car while driving around the town is strangely amusing in an ironic kind of way.
Best of all, though, is the real masterpiece here. Neil Hannon (lead singer of The Divine Comedy) and Yann Tiersen's cover of David Bowie's Life on Mars. It's haunting, bare and scarily beautiful, with Hannon's voice rising and soaring, dropping into an echoing falsetto on occasion, over the stripped bare backing of Tiersen playing what -sounds- like glasses filled with various levels of water. Ever heard anyone play glasses? Well that's what it sounds like. It could be tubular bells I guess, but sounds too light for that, so I prefer to believe, enless evidence is presented to the contrary, that he's playing either glasses or milk bottles.
It's all rather odd but possibly the greatest cover version I've ever heard.
It got me thinking about other covers that have gone on to surpass the original versions of the same songs. A couple of examples spring to mind - Metallica's Whiskey in the Jar; the Fugees' Killing Me Softly; Johnny Cash's Hurt.
Can anyone else think of any other examples of superlative cover versions that are worth listening to?
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Date: 2004-09-21 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-09-21 02:00 pm (UTC)I'll paste a link for the whole album tomorrow and make everyone listen to Life on Mars. :)