McBane here.
I’d like to take a moment to congratulate myself: only four posts in, and I’ve got Raptor worked up enough to respond to something I said.
I guess I could defend myself by saying that since most people haven’t taken calculus, they are probably unfamiliar with “i.” Thus, I felt the only reason someone would include it on a Top 5 list (as Raptor did) would be to snarkily insinuate vast intelligence by suggesting an ease with complex math. (Full disclosure: Raptor ground out a D in calculus. Nice work buddy. I got an A. But I digress.) I also enjoyed how Raptor failed to reach the logical conclusion of his own argument: negative “i” (which can be achieved through cubing “i,” for example) is nine times cooler than “i” anyway. This is all getting a little heavy, which I think proves my point that no one gives a shit about the number "i." (Certainly not my good friend Bob the Angry Flower, who has a few choice words for Raptor and his research team.)
Moving on: you may have noticed a pervasive trend that has long been underway in music, in which bands that cover songs tend toward remaking songs that were already good. The jury is mixed on this process. For the simple-minded, like Raptor, I would imagine all reinventions are probably equally “cool.” To me, this just seems plain distracting and wasteful. For example, I can’t listen to Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” or The Black Crowes’ cover of such without wishing I was listening to the other.
As a result, two things that are good cancel each other out. What makes more sense is if a band reinvents a terrible song that is already popular, so that hopefully at one point the old version will no longer hold any significance. (Again, part of my goal to make the world a better place.)
Let us then take a look at the top five tracks where the original performance could hopefully be eradicated from existence by brave Zeitgeist-slaying artists.
5) Gogol Bordello – Oasis’ “Wonderwall”
Oasis teems with contradictions. While the Gallagher brothers are almost universally regarded as megalomaniacal morons, at the same time it’s difficult not to respect them (at least Noel - Liam really has no talent); they act like rock stars should. Yet their music doesn’t really…rock.
Yeah, they have some good songs. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” is, with no qualification, possibly one of the greatest songs ever (nice job, Noel; very good work sticking Liam on the tambourine). But they’re pop. And that’s cool. Except when it’s not.
“Wonderwall,” for instance, is Liam at his most whiny, most nasal, and least subtle. (Sure, the lyrics aren’t too terrible - Noel wrote it, after all - but the song even has fucking strings in it, for Christ’s sake.) This of course means that for every woman of a certain age period, it is immediately evocative of deeply meaningful girl-to-young-woman transformative experiences that she probably never actually had.
So - why not destroy the ability to make that connection? The undeniably brilliant bastards of Gogol Bordello (I gladly would sacrifice a testicle – one of Raptor’s, most likely - to see them live) would probably be happy to do it, as this band of (literally) gypsies has a joyfully propulsive, schizophrenic sound that would gladly wipe away the gloomy romantic melancholy of Oasis while laying down a pretty badass track. Just a quick whiff of their “American Wedding” will suggest how quickly Oasis could be reduced to ridiculous.
Wonderwall, my eye.
4) Marilyn Manson – The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There For You”
What’s worse than having to watch a shitty chick show with your female friends? Having to watch it in syndication AGAIN and AGAIN.
The Rembrandts are (of course) the force behind the annoying theme song to the show “Friends,” but first let me tell you a couple of stories that illustrate why this Manson cover is such a good idea. They both involve sex in the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant.
Stay with me.
One time Raptor and I were with some friends at a Mexican grease pit and he made an, um, pit stop. He came out and told us with great delight that there were people doing the nasty in there – he was legitimately amused.
Some months later, I went to the bathroom at the same place, and the same thing was happening – but hey, there was another stall and I had to urinate. The bathroom-fuckers took care of their business while I was taking care of mine. None of us were discouraged enough to change our plans, and soon I had finished and was on my way.
Here’s my point – socially, nothing really knocks us off our stride anymore. We’ve been pretty much desensitized to everything. Raptor was enthused but indifferent. I was resigned but indifferent. I don’t know what the people screwing in the dirty bathroom stall were thinking, but I doubt that they were the neurotic type.
This is what makes Manson so remarkable; I’ve never even met him in person and yet in this day and age he somehow manages to make my skin prickle, and just about everyone I know feels the same way. Now, if you heard him do a Rembrandts cover, could you imagine ever wanting to watch “Friends” again? I’m betting against it. And I bet your real friends would feel the same way.
That’s right, gentle reader, your days of being forced to watch syndicated “Friends” episodes could be over. (Plus this could be a legitimately entertaining cover, which would make up for Manson’s "Sweet Dreams” tripe.) The only hurdle is: one of us is going to have to be brave enough to bring it up with Manson.
You had better go first.
3) Girl in a Coma – Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”
“Like a Rolling Stone” is probably the best Dylan song that hasn’t had a great cover (thanks to my buddy El Torcho for pointing this out – also, it should be noted that the Hendrix cover of course doesn’t count, because you can only do one cover of an artist that counts).
Obviously, this lack of countable covers needs to change. Dylan songs are never great until covered, yet it seems like artists who have covered Dylan already come from every corner of the map. You have your aforementioned Hendrix with one of the Top 5 actual covers of all time (“All Along the Watchtower”), your Clapton (“Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”), your GNR (same), your Rage Against the Machine (“Maggie’s Farm”), your Pearl Jam (“Masters of War”), your unavailable-on-YouTube Norah Jones (“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”), your equally unavailable-on-YouTube Indigo Girls (“Tangled Up in Blue”) etc. etc. etc.
What we need is an artist from the “Here Be Monsters” region.
Enter Girl in a Coma. Girl in a Coma (which smartly signed with Joan Jett’s label - Jett of course has a Top 5 actual cover of her own in “Love is All Around”) is one of the better bands you don’t listen to; they don’t get a lot of pub, since industry execs seem to agree that just don’t have the right look to be rock stars (read: they’re fat in weird places). Yet Girl in a Coma is borderline heroic; Both Before I’m Gone is essentially a Smiths album people can enjoy listening to. (“Road to Home” and “Clumsy Sky” being two of the album’s most noteworthy tracks.)
Phanie Diaz is a lethal lyrical lesbian assassin, and her reinterpretation of Dylan’s lyrics would bring a brand new kind of cover to the Dylan stable; along with her band’s transcendental Tejano-tinged cow-punk-funk, a new song could be created where Diaz as jilted and pissed off lover would eviscerate her ex and then snarkily explain to her how bad it must feel to have just been emotionally disembowled.
And you thought you knew all there was to know about Dylan.
2) Lady Sovereign - Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend”
Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” is quite possibly the worst song ever made. I say this with a grudging admiration; it’s easy to make boring songs, or irrelevant ones, but to make truly terrible ones requires both naked ambition and misguided dedication, in copious amounts.
Consider Ms. Lavigne’s most atrocious couplet: “she’s like so whatever / you could do so much better.” This brings back memories of grade school, where one of your little sister’s grubby little friends is always coming on to you, in her unconscious quest to get someone to steal her sunshine by the eighth grade.
While Lavigne can only appear precocious and pathetic, Lady Sovereign can appear both precocious and punishing. “Tango” is a blistering rap-smack track, while also incredibly brave; the good Lady is perhaps the first artist in history to try and rhyme the word “orange” throughout her chorus. “Hoodie” also illustrates her personal integrity through her annoyance with fashion. She isn’t envious, or necessarily even judgmental of fashion and its converts; she just wants to get away from classification and have a good time. Awww.
Think about Lavigne’s couplet again. Now consider how Lady Sovereign would rap this to you. It raises questions. Is she really pining after you? Or is she really just overtly mocking you? Wait a second…is she maybe doing both at once?
The realization that you can’t really tell suddenly kind of makes her seem like a girl that it might be fun to make it with, even if she is just one of your little sister’s grubby friends. And it would suddenly make this song not only cool, but cool by a factor of nine.
1) Cypress Hill -
This is the danger of not keeping up with pop culture. I listened to the song and found out the horrible truth. NOT ONLY is it not a cover, but it rips off two of the lines from Cypress Hill’s chorus. This was perhaps the greatest disappointment I’ve experienced this decade. I also feel embarrassed that Sometimes thought this was acceptable. It’s the sonic equivalent of star basketball player/high school graduate/possible sociopath Kobe Bryant watching Kill Bill and nicknaming himself “The Black Mamba,” like no one knew what the fuck he was talking about.
It raises the question: why should Sometimes even bother now to try to fix things by trying to do a cover? Her heart’s obviously not in it. Wouldn’t it be cooler if Cypress Hill did a cover of HER song, reclaiming what is already obviously theirs? I mean, Cypress Hill kind of has to throw down over this, don’t they? In their genre, bitches [sic] have gotten shot over things like this. Suge Knight (probably) hung Vanilla Ice out of a 20th-story balcony and demanded royalties for what was a lesser offense.
If Cypress Hill did do a Sometimes cover, they could a) prove to anyone who doesn’t understand already that they’re nine times cooler than Sometimes by any sort of human standard and b) they could openly use the media hype surrounding the cover as an avenue to declare a street war on Sometimes and her crew. The resulting fallout would be the new Srebrenica.
I don’t know what more you could ask for out of a cover.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment