With most visits registered to this blog being bots and all comments generated by algorithms, it felt appropriate we should dedicate a theme to robots.
LIAM
Daft Punk - The Grid
You can't get much more robot'y than the
combination of the movie Tron and the electro outfit Daft Punk. I'm a
fan of the original Tron movie, I really liked the new one (despite
mixed reviews), and the soundtrack by Daft Punk is an awesome fit. This
track is as technical as I could get on the soundtrack, interlaced with
spoken snippets from Jeff Bridges.
Fear Factory - Linchpin
Everything
about pre/during and post nu-metal stalwarts Fear Factory screams
robots. The imagery, the sound, the album and track titles; essentially
their whole reason for doing what they do. Initially considered
industrial metal pioneers, for many fans they lost their way and became
annoyingly repetitive and unimaginative during the heyday of nu-metal.
But they've kept churning out good old robotic themed and sounding,
catchy and chunky metal. Linchpins, I assume, are vital in the
robot-construction business, so that's why I chose this track, from
their fourth album, right in the time of nu-metal, 2004's Digimortal.
CHRISTIAN
dEUS - Is A Robot I love my favourite Belgium export: dEUS are a bastion of catchy indie, pop, rock from the low countries. They have a knack for churning out quality, quirky, moody yet memorable tunes. Each new album keeps surprising me with how they keep the bar so consistently high, without seeming to run out of ideas or material. This track is called Is A Robot. It's about how we are all becoming robots with unthinking enthusiasm. The ubiquitous use of phones and technology are turning us into automatons - turning ourselves into just another interface.
Is a Robot on Spotify Orbital - Dr Who Gotta love the divine electronica and gravitas of Orbital. They knocked out some serious classics in their time. This rendition of the mighty Dr Who theme tune is a massive homage with no fromage. No cheese nor lazy sampling, just a faithful rendition with a modern synthesiser sound palette, wicked production and a funky beat. It pays the deepest of respect to the most famous denizen of deep space. The link? Dr Who single-handedly kicks some serious robot butt. Regularly saving the human race from the dominion of either the Cybermen or the Daleks. Unfortunately, for us, the Dr just never saw Facebook, Amazon or Google coming.
CARL
My immediate thought was the Alan Parsons Project album I
Robot from 1977... I remember enjoying it at the time but a quick aural
refresh didn't really do it for me 40 years later. Like my school report
cards used to say, 'Could do better'. I'd come across a crowd called
Welle: Erdball a while ago who were doing some interesting things with
old C64 soundcards... very beepy, flashy, electronicky, roboty stuff,
and they even had an album called Dance Music for Robots... bound to be
something on there, and there was, in the form of Die Roboter which
Google told me meant The Robots. That will do, now find something that
matches on youtube and we're good. Except we aren't. Turns out Die
Roboter is a cover, but not just any cover. It is a cover of a song from
the godfathers of German Electronica themselves, Kraftwerk... and the
original is much better! Here then, is Kraftwerk with The Robots from
the 39 year old album, The Man Machine. What a difference a year makes!
I
was still keen on getting something from the C64/8bit world which, like
many genres, has gotten more sophisticated as it matures. Actually,
sophistication is very subjective when you are dealing with a limited
sound range... Let's just say it's more sophisticated than a kazoo.
During my Welle: Erdball phase I'd also come across a group called
Eisenfunk (Iron Radio in english). These guys specialise in 8bit EBM and
this tune is from their album called, unsurprisingly, 8Bit. It is an
annoyingly familiar tune and a little bit of research says I've probably
heard it while playing Nintendo TETRIS at some point... and TETRIS took
it from The Russians(tm) or at least from Russian folklore. So an old
folksong about the human condition comes to this!
TIM
The best electronica for me always sounds cybernetic, the product of a mind-machine interface.
Amon Tobin is a master of the form. I chose golfer vs boxer for its blend of furious jazz drumming and sci-fi synth.
More recently Arca has been exploring similarly intense sounds. I chose the jarring ecstasy of Xen as my second track.
The task: Bring along tracks from that time in your life when hormones are rushing
about and the first buds of a blossoming interest in music are
sprouting forth. Songs that conjure fond memories for you but as they
are from a time before your tastes congealed into the hipster know all
you are today they might be a little bit embarrassing.
LIAM
For this theme I went back to my pre-teens, to my pre-double-digits
in fact, when I was about 7 or 8, jumping between two single beds,
wrestling my teddy bear with only two vinyl albums to my name. Despite
not doing anything for my music credibility, they do hold a special
place in my heart, so while I'm not exactly proud to put present them, I
can at least say I'm at ease with my choices.
Raffaella Carrà - Do It, Do It Again
I
have no idea where I got this 7 inch single; on the one side the
Italian version A Far L'amore Comincia Tu (about which there is an
interesting Stack Exchange debate about the appropriate translation to
English) and on the other, Do It, Do It Again (With Love). These are the
same song with modified lyrics to better suit the language. About 20
years after I last listened to this single I found it stashed away in my
old bedroom, still wrapped in a homemade, paper and sellotape sleeve.
It brought back a whole heap of memories when I listened again on
YouTube, and so it felt especially worthy of this theme.
Michael Bolton - How Can We Be Lovers If We Can't Be Friends
Ooh,
controversial. Having sent Music Club into a complete tizzy with his
selection of Red Fu some time ago, Carl has made it easier for anyone
else to offer up something embarrassing or just 'wrong'. With that in
mind I decided to present my favourite track from the first vinyl I ever
bought - Michael Bolton's Soul Provider. This is the last track from
side one and, if you really try, you can hear power metal (or at least
power ballad) vocals that I occasionally enjoy in my adult life.
TIM
I grew up on a staple diet of classic rock, and mainstream nineties
like pearl jam and radiohead. But there was the rare CD or tape in my
parents' collection that hinted at a much wider and diverse musical
world, one I'd only discover in my twenties. Van Morrison's Astral Weeks was one of those tapes, my only real
introduction to jazz. Beside You is my favourite track on the album, at
its freest, sixties best.
And Dead Can Dance was the pick of my dad's brief New Age phase,
which involved a lot of Enigma and Deep Forest. The Host of Seraphim
sounded at its apocalyptic best on David's enormous sound system,
vividly invoking the hormonal hyper-realism of the teenage
years where even the most insignificant events often seem drenched in
existential power.
CHRISTIAN
Nothing embarrassing here: My teenage years were spent in the shadow of my Amstrad all-in-one hifi. Veneer chipboard on the sides with a classy tinted front door window that enclosed a snazzy silver, twin tape deck, radio and record player. Hours of fun were had creating mix tapes and spinning discs Kate - Breathing
I don't know where it came from (maybe the parents), but I played the living bejeezus out of a copy of Kate Bush's Whole Story. I recon it still has to be the best best-of that I can think of. Condensing a decent discography onto two sides of vinyl is tough. I love the fact that this record has a bit of everything, and I chose Breathing as the most evocative, strange and compelling tune on the album. What more does a teenager want to fall to sleep to, than sounds of the apocalypse being whispered into your ear by the dulcet tones of the very sexy, creative and leotard-clad Kate. Explosive stuff.
Frankie - Surviving
Slightly later in life, yet still tethered to the Amstrad; I started listening to heaps of London based radio stations. I think it was GLR that I used to record off of most often (before I found Sunrise FM. EDIT: just did a search and it lives again, online!! Result). I made mix tapes from sections of mixes. There was one tape that induced me to catch the train to a record store in London and buy up a list of 12"s that I'd heard and actually got the names of. Unfortunately many of the tunes on the hallowed tape were unknown. Fast forward a few decades, and lo and behold, I start listening to a Frankie Knuckles compilation, only to find 3 or 4 of his tunes were some of the most memorable on the tape. Hallelujah!
RAE
Faith No More - Epic, released June 1989 on The Real Thing album
- the source of influence was my big bro, I'd "borrow" his music, surf
branded clothing, invite myself to hang out with him and his friends -
he was pretty generous although some of the "borrowed" clothes he
probably didn't know about! It reminds me of a time when living in a
big family was about making do with what you had access to and learning
to share space and being exposed to a wide range of music that wasn't
necessarily something you'd choose personally.
There's
reasonable online debate about what the song was about, personally I'm
happy to leave the debate to those who care more than I did. I enjoyed
the mix of genres and have a number of favourites from this album.
Def Leppard - Rocket, from the 1987 Hysteria album....a time where we
embraced bands that openly wore more or equal quantities of makeup as
women, hair was highly flammable, pants were almost painted on and my
bedroom walls were covered in posters of these type of idols (Poison,
GnR etc.).
Rocket as a track has a heap of stuff going on,
multiple version of varying lengths including an 8:41 extended lunar
mix, the original 6:34, and was considered "experimental" for hard rock
at the time, looking back I still love it and have plenty of fond
memories from school disco days of "pashing sessions"...ewwww to
generally kicking around with a group of people being a teenager.
DAVID
10cc "Don't Hang Up" from How Dare You 1976
This
little gem is an absolutely classic piece of 1970's pop/rock. I recall
listening to this with my close friend Brodey Jones in his bedroom after
school. It is really a reminder of just how artificial and inauthentic a
lot of music from this period now sounds. It literally seems to have
come from a different planet to the other things that were beginning to
happen at that time. Hard to believe that The Ramones were bashing out
three minute wonders in New York let alone the mutant electronics of
Suicide also in NYC. Still, the somewhat prissy and overly clever word
play, fussy and glossy production not to mention the incredibly
narcissistic subject matter (I think they intended it to sound as creepy
as it does) seems to represent literally everything that punk rejected.
Nonetheless, I still remember this album with fondness for those
simpler times.
The Brothers Johnson "Strawberry Letter 23" 1977
While
the rest of the world was exploding with punk fervour (well, London) I
was grooving to this fine piece of funk/pop in my bedroom. This was huge
in Henderson (West Auckland) and a staple of every party at the time.
This was definitely the first time I had purchased a pure dance music
album and it was actually a bit radical within my own little group who
at the time were into Grand Funk Railroad (not really very funky at all)
and David Bowie. As I had absolutely no clear 'taste' at this time I
was happy to slot that in next to my Jimi Hendrix albums. Listening to
it again after such a long time I think it still stands as a fine and
enduring piece of groove. It has aged incredibly well when compared to
some of the other stuff around at the time.
Soon
after this brief period between developing an awareness of music in its
own right and before it crystalised into a lifelong passion I bought
The Jam's All Mod Cons (1978) and it has been downhill ever since.
CARL
Slightly embarrassing pre-hipster tunes... my cuppeth overfloweth
as I had the (un)fortunate experience of having the 70's and 80's
running as the background track to my misspent youth...
For a
variety of reasons I had moved cities and/or countries every two years
of my life so the world was pretty impermanent. In each place you would
get to know people over that two year period and then suddenly you
(they) would be gone, never to be seen or heard from again... Except for
that one guy who contacted you on linkedin two days after you signed up
and remembered you from 1974 during the one year you spent at Carre's
Grammar in Sleaford, Lincs. The other slightly bizarre thing that
happened in 1974 was a small group from Sweden who were blitzing their
way through the Eurovision Song Contest that year... luckily for you
ABBA is not on my list because Glam Rock got there first... There, I've
said it.
In my defence for this band a couple of their
tunes have been used recently as soundtrack/promos for fantasy/action
genre movies 'Suicide Squad' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy'. This
particular track was written after an incident at a venue in Kilmarnock
where the band were forced offstage by the crowd throwing bottles at
them... maybe the spandex and glitter was a leap too far... I give you
Sweet with Ballroom Blitz.
Things
didn't get much better in the eighties, sad to say. On the plus side,
I'd stopped moving around every two years and was flatting in
Wellington. On the minus side there was big hair, power shoulders and
tight pants with the added bonus of makeup for one gender and moustaches
for the other. Being on the other side of the planet from the action
meant that my musical diet was dictated by the whims of whichever radio
or TV producer happened to be in charge. Yes, the Music Video had
arrived and it was bigger than a Big Thing(tm)! As with all Big Things
the music video just kept trying to outdo itself to the extent that
sometimes the song got lost in the process. But we didn't care about
that as we tried to look cool in pants that gave parts of the anatomy a
lot of grief while watching A Flock of Seagulls performing I Ran on TV
on a Saturday night before hitting the town, getting legless and
vomiting on the way home...
This
song has been an earworm for me for YEARS. And every time I think
about, it starts up (happily playing in my head right now!).
Why
an earworm, for me, it is the melody and some of the lyrics. The melody
is consistent and repetitious, does not stray much out of one octave,
very constant style. So it gets in my ear and stays. I am not a big fan
of Midnight Oil, though this is one of my favourite songs of theirs – is
that because it is an earworm and I hear it constantly in my head, or,
because I liked it that it became an earworm. Chicken and egg.
Cult of personality – Living Colour
Love
this band, love this song. And an earworm for me because of the same
repertoire – repetitive beat, constant melody - and limited lyrics.
Limited lyrics really makes it, constant repetition, what a cycle! and a
fabulous beat. The song beats in your head, your head bobs out the
chorus and refrain, with a great guitar solo. Not a bad earworm to have. CHRISTIAN When jumping around like a loon on the dance floor, overwrought musical complexity can stymie the enjoyment somewhat - that's why they often check noodling in at the cloak room. The real geniuses of production can disguise complexity over hours of 'progression' or, even better, to provide easy to consume polyrhythms without you even noticing it. This tune, Sunday Shouting by Johnny Corporate, is none of the above. It wears its colours proudly on its sleeve. It's an unashamedly short cycle of very catchy sax notes, bridged with an equally basic yet catchy base line. Repetition is key. When repetition is done well repetition can be a great mechanism to repeat listens, repeatedly. Psychologically, you find yourself instantaneously pleased with yourself, that you already know each section of the song before it arrives, after only hearing it once. Humans love routine, and Johnny obviously realised that you can't have enough of a good thing. I play samba in a percussion group. Over the years, Brazilian swing has provided an almost constant rhythmic background to daily life. My pedestrian footfall provides the primera and segunda, and then the brain fills-in with claves and syncopation. Much to the annoyance of work colleagues and people in the lift, I can randomly verbalise rhythms or just tap them out with my hands (tourette's for drummers). So, my second earworm is most definitely some crazy, class samba action esquenta from Rio. Manguiera are an awesome school and this video always gets the blood boiling. Boom! TIM
I love a good catchy pop song. I chose two that
refuse to leave my head for days after I put them on. The first is from
Charli XCX, an aggressively provocative 2010s answer to comparatively
quaint 90s icons such as The Spice Girls. It’s
an intensely youthful song, about the simple chaotic pleasures of
taking drugs with good friends. Its not a song intended for my
demographic, but the quality of the hooks is too good to ignore.
Charli XCX – Take My Hand.
My second choice is perhaps my favourite ever pop
song. If Take My Hand reflects the simple pleasures of the cool and
extroverted youth, this song shows the other side – youth can be
bittersweet for those too introverted, awkward or simply
dull to participate in the normative reckless hedonism that so many pop
songs celebrate. Here’s Where The Story Ends is about youthful
adventures that end before they begin, with Harriet Wheeler’s clear
voice combining perfectly with her husband-to-be’s jangly
guitar.
The Sundays - Here's Where the Story Ends.
LIAM
Leaving pondering this theme till the evening of our get-together
was probably not the best idea, and I did struggle to think of songs
that are regularly on my mind. I'm not really much of a hummer or tapper
you see, and generally have the more recent tracks I've listened to
bouncing around my head than those from way-back-when. Eternal Flame was
the first track I thought of, but in the interest of keeping my Music
Club credibility in the positive (or having any chance of getting into
the positive), I racked my brains extra hard to come up with something a
bit more... manly!
Elton John - Measure of a Man
My
upbringing was quite immersed in the Rocky movies thanks to an older
cousin who had all of them on VHS and the soundtracks on tape, playing
these regularly when we hung out. The soundtracks are pretty cool, and
through the first 5 movies being released over the span of 14 years,
have a real sense of time and place. This track from the closing credits
of the fifth movie has stayed with me since 1991-92, and although feels
like a typical, epic, powerful Elton John track, steers away from some
of the cheesyness some of his more commonly played songs contain. Very
uplifting!
Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple
This
is just fun, and will surely remain in your head for some time after
spinning it! I luckily came across a live performance of Gogol Bordello
on MTV2 a couple of weeks before they were due to play a festival I was
attending. It was this track, and I thought the atmosphere looked
amazing. They played the festival at 4pm in baking sunshine, and I made
sure to see them. What started off as a crowd of a few hundred soon
turned into many thousands as songs like this one drew bleary-eyed
festival hippies and soon-to-be-hippies from all around. Do not miss
this band if you ever have the chance to see them live.
CARL
For me, earworms come and go but there are some that return
time and again. Glokenpop from the album Grand Slam by Spiderbait is one
such. The beauty of this song is that it's all self contained. Three
minutes and twelve seconds of sage instruction, sound advice and intense
mentoring of the budding pop star, all set to an uplifting riff... and
yet is that a whiff of artist vs. industry cynicism I detect? In the
same vein as Weezer - Pork and Beans or Pink Floyd - Have a Cigar?
Surely not. Puts an entirely different perspective on things... like in
the video, are they chocolate mousses or shiny dog turds? (although the video name is Glockenpop I'll stay with the album name)
The
second one is floating amongst my current transient jetsam... The group
is called WORLD ORDER (yes, all caps) and, like a lot of Japanese
groups, there is an important visual aspect to their work. In this case
it is choreography. Think synchronised C3-P0 in a suit. If you're
struggling with what that might look like then spare a thought for the
average unsuspecting Japanese person that may have the misfortune to be
caught up in one of their productions... stunned mullet doesn't do
justice to some of the reactions. It's leader, Genki Sudo, is
responsible for pretty much everything, singing, performing,
songwriting, directing, producing... the lot. Not bad for an ex-MMA
fighter. It's mostly in Japanese and I'm thankful they, like the
English, think nothing of nicking words from other languages and using
them as and when. Because of that I get to sing 'Have a Nice Day' three
times and 'Everywhere' twelve times in four and a half minutes in a song
I don't really understand...
CHRISTIAN Memories Can't Wait When one mighty band covers another seminal act, great things can happen. I was introduced to Living Colour way back when I worked on a checkout at the local supermarket. LC had just released Vivid where they completely nailed funk rock with incredible individual musicianship. It's their 30th anniversary tour this year, and I'll be seeing them play in Auckland in May - whoop! I offer up Memories Can't Wait, originally by Talking Heads off of the LP, Fear of Music. I adored much of their music but spent most of my time wearing out my video cassette of Stop Making Sense. The original is a weird freak out, trippy affair. It sounds like someone reflecting on loosing their marbles, where all the voices and instrumentation are distorted visions and jumbled thoughts. Then Vernon Reid gets his hands on the song and turns it into a vehicle to rambunctiously solo through. Corey and team transform the song from sounding like terminal brain atrophy to a light mental health phase, and everything's going to be alright.
Uptown Ranking This was a massive tune in the late 70's, where two young ladies (Althea and Donna) from Jamaica made it big with a one hit wonder. It was patois heavy but the alliteration and allusions to the Caribbean were a winner. It also has a delightful innocence about it - it's not moody, sexy, aggressive, or any of the marketing memes that A&R execs seem to go for nowadays. I then discovered Black Box Recorder from the crazy yet amazing dystopian animated show, Monkey Dust. The band's name tells of the only surviving sonic record after a plane crash. Just as cheerily, the music was the backdrop to a suburban nightmare, uniquely of this centuries making: we've apparently never had it so good, while never having had such a gloomy outlook with such little promise. The chirpy tune that was a summer sunshine classic, gets converted into a gloomy trip-hop, monotone, dirge with little hope. It sounds like a middle-class, suburban housewife is mechanically reducing the patois into an nonsensical soliloquy, while staring out the window, doing the dishes. There are heaps of covers that do an honest reproduction of the original but there's something exciting when a song gets completely re-imagined.
DAVID Being a 'cover band' is these days considered a serious 'burn'. No one
want to be that band but the fact is that everyone loves a good cover
version. It remains a hugely popular if somewhat guilty pleasure for all
music fans. That's why bands keep churning them out people!
Anyway,
enough about good covers, what I focused on were the truly misguided.
The ones that really have you scratching your head and reaching for the
sick bucket at the same time. The ones that leave you reeling with a
'WTF were they thinking?" aftertaste.
Where
ambition becomes overreach and there is no logical way to follow their
thinking about how they decided to invest their time and resources into
actually capturing this and releasing it upon an unsuspecting public.
Tracks that call into question the entire artistic process and mental
stability of those involved.
Step forward Britney Spears and her cover of....."I love Rock n' Roll".
Yep The Joan Jett & the Blackhearts timeless classic ode to the
liberating powers of good ole rock and roll. However where Joan
convinces everyone of her heart felt sincerity with her bad-ass straight
ahead rock, Britney turns it into an opportunity to work her way through
all the cliches of a pin up calendar photo shoot. Fake. Fake Fake. She
most emphatically does NOT love Rock and roll. And rock and roll does
not love her. Fail.
Track two takes the 'poor choice of cover' to a new and borderline offensive level by Duran Duran covering Public Enemy's "911 is a joke".
I know. What exactly a bunch of prancing white bread pop boys thought
they could add to this epic piece is beyond me. If you have any ideas at
all please send them on a postcard.
Most
people react to this with frank disbelief. Surprisingly Simon le Bon et
al thought it was a great wheeze. This has to be the musical equivalent
of 'crossing the streams' and will surely see them condemned to burn in
some special hell (soundtrack provided by Messrs Liam and Christian).
LIAM I found this theme (chosen by none-other-than-me!) a pretty easy one. I
wasn't overly happy with my choices the last time we came armed with
covers, suffering from too many options and picking more on uniqueness
than quality. Ever since that night, I was determined to have another
run at this theme and pick tracks I felt more strongly about.
Juliet Turner - Toxic (originally by Britney Spears)
This
cover is from the Even Better Than The Real Thing series of CDs
realised for charity by Irish radio station Today FM. Every week, while
interviewing an Irish musician or band, the presenter of a popular
morning show on the station would put a vote to the listeners. They
would choose which of three songs the interviewee would have to
interpret, learn and perform before the end of the show two hours later.
Typically one option was a modern pop hit, and the antagonistic
listeners would inevitably choose this to make it interesting and
difficult for the artist. This format produced 4 CDs containing many
fantastic cover versions of well known pop tracks.
I
could have picked any of about 20 tracks off these albums. I chose this
one because Juliet does such a great job of making this super well
known track breathy and seductive, and every time I hear it I think how
well written the track is, which I would never have thought about the
original presentation.
Type O Negative - Summer Breeze (originally by Seals and Croft)
Released
on their 1972 Summer Breeze album, Seals and Crofts' original version
reached No. 6 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart in the US, and in 2013,
it was ranked No. 13 in Rolling Stone′s "Best Summer Songs of All
Time". Thank you Wikipedia! For the first several years of owning this
album I would never have thought this was anything other than a Type O
original. To find it was a cover was amazing, and to realise how
summery, dreamy and hippy the original was was mind-blowing! Peter
Steele (RIP) and Type O Negative find that excellent and challenging
balance of making the track their own while staying true to the
original, and, in my opinion, improving on it.
RAE
My first instinct was to select The Man Who Sold the World, I
didn't end up playing this during our session instead I selected the
second cover below. Afterwards, I did notice that both my songs had
World in the title (quite unplanned).
This is a David Bowie original, from
his third studio album first released in the United States by Mercury
Records November 1970, and then in April 1971 in the United Kingdom. It
was also covered by Lulu,
who had a UK No. 3 hit with her version in 1974, whilst they all have
their merit for different reasons (Lulu's version being my
least liked) my favourite version is Nirvana's performed on MTV
unplugged in 1993.
Bowie:
Lulu:
Nirvana:
Wild World
Original
version by Cat Stevens released in 1970 on his fourth album Tea for the
Tillerman and apparently related to the end of his romance with actress
Patti DÁrbanville. This song has been extensively covered by other
artists including a version by Garth Brooks as recent as 2013, in my
rough count no less than 23 attempts at it thus far....
I like the strength at which she tackles this song and it is this version that is my preferred. TIM
Covers remind me of jazz standards, where every
version is a cover. So I chose a rock standard, a song that has been
covered so many times that the original version seems almost irrelevant.
Iggy Pop’s version may not be the best, but he
makes the song distinctively his own, as anyone doing a cover ought.
Gloria – Iggy Pop
For my second song, I went for a jazz version of an
Iggy Pop original. But not a noodly lounge-jazz version, a full blast
free-jazz version from Danish band The Thing. In place of wailing guitar
there is wailing sax, and in place of Iggy
Pop’s snarl is an equally aggressive Neneh Cherry.
Neneh Cherry and The Thing - Dirt
DEB
Enya – Sail Away
Frankly,
I do not like this song. Words cannot express how much I dislike this
song. It is an ear worm song in the worst possible way.
Santana – Sail Away
Saw
Santana as Bluesfest. He was playing a reasonable set, warming up
rather well. Then he does THIS song!!!!! I exploded at the concert,
there was a lot of swearing. I insisted that we had to leave, Santana
had fallen that far in my esteem. Santana will not be the same for me.
CARL
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones / Devo
If
Art isn't Science then you have to accept the occasional failure on
your way to greatness... and so it is even for the
Greatest-Band-Of-My-Early-Adulthood... DEVO. These guys from Akron
Ohio were students at Kent State University at the time and one was
involved in the protests that ended with the shooting of unarmed
students by the Ohio National Guard (two of the four people killed were
friends of his). This event led to the main theme of De-Evolution of US
society that permeated DEVO from then on.
This cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" appeared on their first album "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!".
The lyrics certainly fitted with the mindset of the band even though
they took a markedly different approach to the arrangement. Also note in
the video that the team are wearing Club Devo catalog items "Yellow
Suit YS7891 - Protect yourself from dangerous human elements and stay
cool during meltdowns in this official DEVO suit. A classic in formal
attire. (Features Non Corrosive Snaps.)" and "3D GLASSES 3DG 477- The Real McCoys, As seen on Saturday Nite Live (and elsewhere). Adds a new dimension to your 2-D life!". Sadly, neither of these items are currently available on the Club Devo website any more...
The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum - Fun Boy Three / Collide
I've
said it before and I'll say it again, the variety of music coming out
of the UK in the 70's and 80's was phenomenal. A real melting pot... And
Fun Boy Three were typical of that. Three ex members of The Specials
that continued to distill SKA in their own unique way. I've always liked
the original but at the time didn't really connect with it as a social
statement... hindsight is a wonderful thing and when you remember that
this was released the year after Reagan was elected President of the USA
you can see the relevance of what was being said.
Collide
is an American based duo in the Industrial genre that have been active
since 1995. They run a mix of original and industrialised covers and
produce an album every 3-5 years... not prolific but definitely
professional. I think they've done the song justice to the point where
I'll play it over the original more often than not. On the homage side
of the covers equation... they respect the original but add their own
unique touches.