Yesterday it was “Auld Lang Syne.” No really, I got home from class and using the internet and there it was. “Should old acquaintance be forgot..” I mentioned to Henry that I don’t actually know the words and he started to sing it. I was surprised by the Scottish in it. He said, “Well, yeah, it is a Scottish song after all…” No wonder I didn’t know the words. I had no idea, I’m willing to bet all of the versions I’ve heard have been “Americanized.” I wonder what I’ll hear today…
I could spend a lot of time watching this channel. I’ve seen several “Classic albums” shows and they are quite good. I’m a little suspicious about their qualification basis though. I’ve seen “Never Mind the Bollocks,” “Dark Side of the Moon,” Elvis Presley’s first album, and “Hysteria” by Def Leppard. Hmm, which one of these doesn’t belong? I mean c’mon, no matter what you think of the music of the first three, you can’t really debate their impact. Def Leppard not so much… The one on “Dark side…” actually made me want to listen to Pink Floyd again (God help me…). DSOTM is done really well, but the things that made me nostalgic for them was a song called “Echos” from Meddle and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” from Ummagumma. That second one is actually a live recording, I’ll never forget the spectacle of my RA my freshmen year bursting into my room and dancing to that that song. It’s not the kind of thing you usually think about dancing to, but she was a dance major and she was mesmerizing, and maybe stoned too…
I’ve also caught some of the concerts that VH1 classics has shown too. Thin Lizzy and Twisted Sister aren’t exactly my favorites, but the Smiths concert was pretty good. It sounded like it was right after their first album. Morissey was scrawny and had a ridiculous early 80’s hairstyle that was a combination of rockabilly and new wave. At the beginning of the show, you could just tell that he was so into himself, he really believed that he was the best thing ever. Who could blame him really, he was being showered with flowers and people were going crazy for him. I’ll tell you this, he has quite the stage presence, I was starting to believe him halfway through “Pretty Girls Make Graves.” I was also really impressed with Johnny Marr, for some reason his guitar was more noticeable live. It was a crazy show, the stage ended up being mobbed with what looked like about 50 people making fools of themselves attempting to dance. To be fair, I have no idea how anyone could dance to any song by the Smiths…
Anyway, it’s a good thing I’ve never had this station before, I probably wouldn’t have gotten anything done, I’ love this sort of stuff…
I’ve been having fun “radio hunting” as I drive around. Predictably, FM here in the DC area is terrible. It’s really a shame that a major metropolitan area like this has such lousy radio. There’s an independent station in Kilmarnock (near my father’s place) that always amazes me for the short time I’m in their broadcasting area. This time it was Frankie Lymon and Dion and the Belmonts… I did manage to hear “I Was Made for Loving You” by Kiss. I probably haven’t heard that since I owned the Dynasty album back in the late 70’s…
I managed to catch a new video from My Chemical Romance today. I’ve written about them before, my conclusion was that their videos were interesting but the music had trouble standing on its own. “Teenagers” reverses that, it’s a straightforward rock song, but a pretty good one. “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me! They could care less as long as somebody bleeds…” It’s a good tune. If more of their songs were like this, I’d be a bigger fan.
I made a mistake in my last post about cover songs. There was a great cover made of an Otis Redding song. Areatha made the definitive recording of RESPECT, I will never call her a fool… I think I should also make a distinction between doing a new version of a song and doing a cover. A cover is basically a copy, the new version is, well, new. So Rod Stewart made a new version of “The First Cut is the Deepest,” while Sheryl Crow did a cover of Rod’s version. In Jazz, there are very few vocalists that also write their own material, standards have been recorded by numerous people, but they are all different versions.
I took a look at my iTunes library to see what covers/new versions I have. There were a bunch of course, but two stood out. I have 5(!) different versions of “Ain’t that loving you Baby.” Two are by Elvis, one by a guy named Johnny Taylor, I have one by Eric Clapton, and one by the Beau Brummels. The Beau Brummels’ version is the best and Clapton’s is the worst. I think I’ve heard a version done by the Yarbirds with Clapton that was pretty good, but it could have been the Animals, without Clapton of course… Trivia time, guess who the producer of the Beau Brummels first album was. None other than Sly Stone. Can’t say that I hear much influence, I wonder what he could tell a bunch of white guys when they were recording the album? The song itself is pretty basic but I don’t think it was ever a big hit for anyone despite its popularity among different groups. I have no idea who wrote it originally..
The other song I have a bunch of versions of is “Summertime” by George and Ira Gershwin. I have 5 of those too. Miles Davis with Gil Evans do a sublime, instrumental version, Janis Joplin does a decent one with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson (!), and Billy Stewart. My favorite one to listen to is the Billy Stewart one. He had a minor hit with it, he’s the one with the long trilling intro, and it has a great, swinging horn section backing him up. Anyway, I was surprised to see that many version of those two particular songs in my collection.
I have never liked Sheryl Crow’s music. She has always seemed to epitomize everything that is wrong with FM these days. She’s bland, clever, and has a pretty voice, a perfect recipe for success in the pop music market. Every single she put out had the same effect on me, until “The First Cut is the Deepest” came out. It’s one hell of a song, even with her performing it. I knew it was a cover, I had seen the song listed on a Rod Stewart Best of compilation, but I had never heard his version before. Coming back from Beijing, I was listening to some of the in flight music on the Emirates flight back to Dubai and heard the Rod Stewart version. Incidentally, whoever does their programming has amazing taste. “James Brown live at the Apollo”, The Clash’s first album, “Hot buttered Soul” from Isaac Hayes, and even Blue Cheer’s first album are among the things I’ve heard on their flights. Better than any radio station I’ve ever heard. Anyway, the DJ mentioned that Rod Stewart’s version was a cover of the Cat Stevens song. Now I was intrigued, the Rod Stewart version is markedly superior to Ms. Crow’s version and I was curious to see what Cat Stevens had in mind when he penned the song. Cat Stevens (or Jusef Islam nowadays) has always been a prime candidate for covers. He was one heck of a song writer, but he has always had a weak singing voice and odd phrasing. Sure enough, his version of the song shows all of his regular hallmarks. It starts off well enough, just him an an acoustic guitar, but the producers quickly resorted to all of the 70’s tricks for compensating for a singer with no range and a weak voice. Lots of strings, horns, and double tracking (the singer is recored twice and played at the same time to add body to the voice) make for the typically overproduced 70’s pop recordings. Later in his career, Jusef got away from some of those things and adopted a style that was better suited for his voice, “Moonshadow” and “Peace Train” are two good examples of him at his best.
Rod Stewart corrected the really strange phrasing that Jusef used and added a voice with some depth of emotion and frankly, some interest. Rod Stewart used to be one hell of a rock and roll singer, disco really brought him down and he’s never fully recovered from “If you Think I’m Sexy” and “Hot Legs”. Listen to him with the Faces and you’ll know why he’s stuck around so long… He doesn’t have a classic great voice, but at his best he can ache, and he can keep the listener’s attention and interest. Yes, there are some strings in there, but they are much more subdued and are clearly a backing element as compared to the Stevens version. Rod did a remarkable job with “The First cut…” In my mind it is clearly the best version out there. Sheryl Crow simply switched a few pronouns, added a prettier voice, and leached out a lot of the angst while simply taking Stewart’s phrasing. Rod Stewart showed what can be accomplished with a good cover, and Sheryl Crow demonstrated what not to do. When done well, you can take a well written song and wring every ounce of whatever it has in it. When you do it well, no one can really imagine the song sung any different way. That’s why the Crow and Stewart song sound so similar, Rod Stewart nailed it, there really isn’t a better way to do it. After the comparison, I am more convinced than ever that Sheryl Crow is a talentless hack.
When I was downloading the two versions of the song for comparison, I remembered another pair of songs that I wanted to compare. “Another Saturday Night” by Sam Cooke is one of my favorite songs of all time. Cat Stevens covered it and it seems like he gets much more airplay these days. Comparing the two solidified my opinion, Sam Cooke’s version towers over Cat’s. Really, if you are going to cover a song, you shouldn’t try a song that was popularized by someone of Sam Cooke’s talent. He had almost perfect phrasing, and a voice that could melt butter. I could listen to his album “Night Moves” all day despite the mediocre writing quality of most of the songs, he’s that good. In short, people like Cat Stevens produce perfect cover material. Only a fool would cover performers like Sinatra, Cooke, Otis Redding, and Janis Joplin. They put too indelible a mark on the songs they did to be improved upon. Curiously, Dylan covers have not fared too well (IMO) despite the bad reputation of his voice. Notable exceptions are of course Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower”, and a cover of “Just Like a Woman” done by Roberta Flack of all people. Most of the covers of his songs that had chart success suffer in comparison to their original. “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “The Mighty Quinn,” “It ain’t Me,” “Love is a Four Letter Word,” etc are all watered down versions of the original.
Good covers are helpful and useful, they uncover what a song really has in it and turns a mediocre product into a great one. Bad, or merely competent covers are little more than pathetic. At best, they are an homage to the original. At worst they highlight the inadequacies of the performer. Cat Stevens and Sheryl Crow should stick with original material IMO….
I heard a Pixies song in a Visa commercial the other day, a rather obsure one too, Isla De Encanta. It was on a station out of Dubai, not sure if it is in rotation in the US. That lead to a conversation with another student about how great songs and bands are being co-opted by advertisements. My examples were Cadillac using Led Zepplin, Jaguar using “London Calling” by the Clash, and even Chuck D was introducing Baseball Tonight on ESPN for a while. He agreed with me and said that what they were doing to Journey songs was terrible… After a classic condescending Isaac look he felt compelled to add, “What? Dude, Journey rocks!” Comparing two of the more “important” rock bands and one of the most influential voices of the crack ravaged late 80’s early 90’s inner city experience to an ad hoc, made for selling albums group didn’t seem like a good comparison to me.
I’m really happy with my latest download. This group is right up there with The Cowboy Junkies as far as having an obnoxious name that has nothing to do with the music. The New Pornographers are a power pop, post punk type of group. Imagine a combo of Cheap Trick, ELO, The Waitresses, Squeeze, and the Replacements with a definite post-grunge feel and you’ll get close. I’ve only downloaded one album, “Mass Romantic” and it’s going to cause me to download a couple more of their albums. In particular, I like “Mass Romantic,” “Fake Headlines,” The Slow Descent into Alcoholism,” and “Jackie.” “Slow Descent…” really reminds me of the Waitresses, I would have loved to hear the late Tracy Donhue singing that. Or even Michelle Ledoux, a student I knew at IC. She was in a (very) short lived band up there and had some real talent in the same vein as Ms. Donahue. It would have been fun to hear her sing this song, or even “Unchained” by Van Halen… No really! With Terry Jin on lead guitar it would have been great! I believe her main claim to fame was playing the hooded, kidnapped wife in the back of the car in the movie “Fargo.” OK, enough reminiscing about college… “Visualize success/ but don’t believe your eyes/ what good is a vision of the world/without the will to despise it?” That’s a quick snippet from “Jackie” and I’m not sure if it’s inspired, depressing, or both. In any case, the album is filled with superbly crafted pop goodies and is always “smart.” Check out the New Pornographers if you like poppy rock, they’re a lot of fun.
Isaac
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Isaac