Bad cover versions

[Ness Rowlah]

someone where i was working had this filthy obnoxious CD with this kind of throaty bossa-nova coffee table style cover versions of things like "orgasm addict" and (was it?) visage and the cramps. just too horrendous for words. apparently it's their second LP of cover versions. eugh.

I suspect this might have been the awful waste of empty space
that is Nouvelle Vague -

Effing piece of charmless shit - and my immediate nomination when reading the heading of this thread.

I still hate them (this is from 2005).

Just listening to the BBC’s chill-show Blue Room and Rob da Bank is again playing Nouvelle Vague’s version of Love Will Tear Us Apart. It’s "everyone’s favourite Joy Division song — it’s soo bittersweet, blah, blah, blah". Flunk’s version of New Order’s Blue Monday was excellent, respectful and different. But the continental clowns in Nouvelle Vague and the throat singing Kuvezin make Love Will Tear Us Apart into a vacuous circus act performed by and for empty-headed luvvies. The original song is anything but a circus number to be performed by silly-cool continental smarties or Tuvan throat singers looking for recognition.

Novelle Vague and Kuvezin might as well have pissed on Ian Curtis’ grave — their chill-salon-versions of Love Will Tear Us Apart are sacrilegious and unforgivable. And Rob da Bank should know better than to play this rubbish.

---

As for Dylan. Well since I rate Dylan (as a performer) just above NV - then I would say
something like "All Along the Watchtower" is improved when Hendrix or XTC deliver the track instead of Dylan.

 

[soundslike1981]

magazines remake of sly stones thankyouforlettinmebemicelfagain. really fucking horrible 80s slap bass playing with horrrid production to match. never want to hear it again.

Haha, one of the main reasons I could never really get into Magazine.


I was a little offended by Jose Gonzales' cover of The Knife's "Heartbeats," which I only just heard (of) a couple days ago (yes, I do live in a cave). It's not that it's that awful, but just that it's entirely tepid--and (raising the elitist in me) it is apparently so much more palatable to the average person.

It's not that I'm even totally averse to singer-songwriterisation of non-singer-songwriter tunes--I actually prefer most of Mark Kozelek's covers of AC/DC tunes ; )

 

[Ness Rowlah]

(yes, I do live in a cave)

soundslike1981BC ...

 

[pokinatcha]

It's not that I'm even totally averse to singer-songwriterisation of non-singer-songwriter tunes--I actually prefer most of Mark Kozelek's covers of AC/DC tunes ; )

Kozelek is guilty of quite a few bad covers — as Sun Kil Moon, he released "Tiny Cities," an entire album of Modest Mouse songs. It's pretty awful.

 

[petergunn]

the disco trend of covering 60's pop tunes (house of the rising son, knock on wood, i'm a man, the letter) got out of hand really fucking quickly, as most of them are just terrible....

however, that Rosebud disco LP of Pink Floyd covers is awesome, just b/c they do "arnold laybe" and "interstellar overdrive"...

 

[soundslike1981]

Kozelek is guilty of quite a few bad covers — as Sun Kil Moon, he released "Tiny Cities," an entire album of Modest Mouse songs. It's pretty awful.

Yeah, I heard a few minutes from that album, it sounded pretty awful. I think he had about a 2 EP period of doing good work. But all the rest is just mopey dreck.

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

Yeah, spot on, I was in a clothes shop the other day (first time for everything) and there was some indie cover of Love Machine - I think it's called - by Girls Aloud. I guess that's probably well known but it's the first time I've heard it and it's perfectly summed up by what you just said - you could tell you thought that they were doing something clever and knowing but really they'd just sucked the life out of a perfectly good pop song.

their cover of "i think we're alone now" achieved the impossible: made Tiffiney's 80s original sound really fuckin great.

having said that, i always liked their update of Pointer Sisters' "jump"

the disco trend of covering 60's pop tunes (house of the rising son, knock on wood, i'm a man, the letter) got out of hand really fucking quickly, as most of them are just terrible....

Amii Stewart's "knock on wood" was the bomb, muthafucka. and her take on "light my fire" fucked that dead, drunk fat bloke over big time. in fact, i'd take 70s disco cover versions over 60s originals any day.

La Belle Epoch's "Black Is Black" - it's nice, dammit!

 

[mistersloane]

La Belle Epoch's "Black Is Black" - it's nice, dammit!

Seeeeeeeeeerious tune. So dark that version.

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

Seeeeeeeeeerious tune. So dark that version.

...and of course it's on Youtube, for all curious punters...


or


...but which was the real Belle Epoch? my own hazy childhood memory thinks it was the blond flanked by the black girls (notice how she gestures towards them when she sings 'black is black'...phew, heavy...)...but it was probably neither, just session vocalist.

okay, now i'm gonna try find Joy Sarney singing Naughty Naughty Naughty....

 

[mistersloane]

...and of course it's on Youtube, for all curious punters...


or


...but which was the real Belle Epoch? my own hazy childhood memory thinks it was the blond flanked by the black girls (notice how she gestures towards them when she sings 'black is black'...phew, heavy...)...but it was probably neither, just session vocalist.

okay, now i'm gonna try find Joy Sarney singing Naughty Naughty Naughty....

Oh dear! I always thought that song had really malevolent undertones, and now, having seen those videos ( and WHAT is that about? ) I realise that Belle Epoch's agenda was to induce paranoid schizophrenia within the masses. I suddenly came over all Dressed To Kill and got the urge to dress in tarty women's clothes and murder punters down back alleyways. Don't ever do that to me again.

 

[hurricane run]

when kaiser chiefs covered heard it through the grapevine, ripped off the slits cover and claimed they came up with it by crediting it as a cover of marvin gaye. that was utterly shameless, the red faced twat even copied all of ari up's vocal inflections for fucks sake.

it made me really angry

me too jo wiley's cooing afterwards induced white knuckle rage
their interview in todays guardian suggests overcoked arrogance which generally means the end for brit 'indie' bands in the success stakes

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

Oh dear! I always thought that song had really malevolent undertones, and now, having seen those videos ( and WHAT is that about? ) I realise that Belle Epoch's agenda was to induce paranoid schizophrenia within the masses. I suddenly came over all Dressed To Kill and got the urge to dress in tarty women's clothes and murder punters down back alleyways. Don't ever do that to me again.

welcome 2 reality, blud...

 

[mistersloane]

welcome 2 reality, blud...

*screams like Fay Wray*

 

[swears]

Not their finest moment.