Ness Rowlah
Norwegian Wood
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.
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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.