What could be more hilarious than a girls choir performing “I Touch Myself”? Or a folk singer crooning N.W.A.? Irony didn’t die after 9/11, it just reconstituted itself in the form of covers. The more unlikely the pairing of artist and song the better. Take a fast tune weirdly slow or something slow at full tilt. Add a lounge beat or an accordion. Or both. Sing in Finnish.
This is the ethos that has dominated indie music for the past several years, and I should be careful not to act like I’m above it all. As much as the next guy, perhaps more, I’ve been hungrily collecting these covers, beginning with however many versions of “Oops! . . . I Did It Again” I could get my hands on (only four). Still, it’s nice to see a band fighting back—sort of.
The Bad Plus is a Minneapolis jazz ensemble that doesn’t play standards, which is to say popular music written at the beginning to middle of the last century. Instead, it improvises on contemporary popular music, which is to say Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It’s an artistic tack that has earned the group the critical label of joke. My favorite snort of disgust comes from a British paper, which wonders, “Isn’t it time to put the clever-clogs stuff on hold for a bit? . . . [The Bad Plus] risk being like that party bore with the flashing bow-tie and shouting, ‘I’m a laugh, I am.’”
To which TBP responds: “We are serious about all the music we play, the covers included. They are NOT a joke.”
The band then argues that such a critical stance implies that either the original music is unworthy or that the way the covers are performed is somehow ironic. But listen to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” The playing is perfectly earnest and the music perfectly powerful.
All of which inspired me to put together a mix of cover songs that runs the gamut of ironic to earnest, whimsical to serious. Not all of them are contemporary, either in terms of the artist or the song. My only criteria was that the songs succeed on their own terms. (And thanks, by the way, to Richard Crary at The Existence Machine for the original TBP link.)
1. Straight Outta Compton – Nina Gordon
Former lead singer of Veruca Salt does gangsta rap. This is irony in its purest form . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that. Irony either serves an interesting purpose or it doesn’t. In this case, Gordon’s sweet voice and understated guitar underline the macho nihilism of Ice Cube & Co.—it’s funny and chilling at the same time.
2. Brown Eyed Handsome Man – Fontella Bass
Nothing new about this Chuck Berry classic. I just love the way Bass, known in her day for the soulful “Our Day Will Come,” makes it swing. It’s no longer rock ’n’ roll—but it does still retain that awful error in the last verse. “2–3 the count”? Did Berry know nothing about baseball? He’s probably a Cardinals fan.
3. I Touch Myself – Kolacny Brothers & Scala
Yes, this really is a Belgian girls choir singing the 1991 Divinyls hit about female masturbation. According to Scala’s website, the group was looking for “another repertoire”—not unlike The Bad Plus, I suppose. This is earnestness in its purest form . . . and strangely addictive. Makes me feel like I’m in a high school auditorium.
4. Smells Like Teen Spirit – The Bad Plus
There are plenty of silly versions of this grunge classic, from Willie Nelson’s off-the-cuff rendition to one that features beat boxing. But The Bad Plus do justice to the song’s epic angst & melodrama. At the end, the piano is opened up and strummed in apocalyptic glee. Kurt would have been proud.
5. Daniel – Tortoise & Bonnie “Prince” Billy
This version might cock Sir Elton’s brow. The Chicken Man’s ’70s hit is painted pitch black and then washed with heavy distortion—I keep wanting to tune the dial for clearer reception. The song’s lovely melody reminds me of a flower blooming between a crack in the sidewalk. It keeps getting stepped on & ground down and yet somehow keeps thrusting back up.
6. Heart of Glass – Toshiyuki Yasuda
On his MySpace page, Yasuda describes himself as a civil engineer who “sings Brazilian music as a robot ‘ROBO*BRAZILEIRA.’” His “Heart of Glass” is all angles; it proves what a sturdy tune the old Blondie favorite is. Going back to The Bad Plus—the jazz standards are all have sturdy architecture, capable of supporting the most inventive of improvisations. Is it too far fetched to say that “Heart of Glass,” or “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for that matter, is one of the new standards?
7. So. Central Rain – Hem / So. Central Rain – Grant-Lee Phillips
Here, early R.E.M. is slowed down & twanged up, with the pedal steel bearing the load of Michael Stipe’s ennui instead of Peter Buck’s jangly guitar. Still no clue what Stipe was singing about, but his lyrics are always suggestive, and that, of course, is all one needs really. Ask Dylan. I also love the sadness in Sally Ellyson’s vocals, although an old friend of mine insists that the tune drags—okay, maybe a little—and that Grant-Lee Phillips’ barer-bones version better cuts to the chase. For her, I include both.
8. You Are the Everything – Redbird
R.E.M. again, this time sped up a bit, with Kris Delmhorst on harmonies doing her best Kelly Willis impersonation. (Which is a compliment in my book.) No improvisation, no reinvention, no angles at all—just a sincere reminder of what a stunningly beautiful song this is: “I look at her and I see the beauty of the light of music . . .”
Gangsta rap turned into a bluegrass anthem. It doesn’t matter what this means, only that it rocks. Snoop Dogg and mandolins were made for one another, apparently.
10. Hotel California – The Cat Empire
The Cat Empire is an Aussie ensemble that lightens up the Eagles warhorse by recasting it as sardonic & French. One can imagine them in a café with accordion, double bass, and snare, all twirling their mustaches!
11. Down Under – Red Army Choir
This, I will grant you, is ridiculous. But is it any more ridiculous than the Men at Work original? (And I have no idea who’s really singing.)
12. Theme from M*A*S*H – Bill Evans
This was a staple for Evans in his later years. Featuring Eddie Gomez on bass and Eliot Zigmund on drums, the tune goes nice & easy—painless even—with Evans improvising around the edges but otherwise taking good care of Johnny Mandel’s gorgeous melody. (For the original, go here.)
13. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right – The Wonder Who?
I’ll just give it over to the All Music Guide: “The Wonder Who? were a pseudonym for the Four Seasons, who released a Bob Dylan cover, ‘Don’t Think Twice,’ under that name in late 1965. The song was an outtake from their obscure Sing Hits By Bacharach, David and Dylan album and was about the most camp cover of a Dylan tune that could be imagined, Frankie Valli singing in his most castrato voice and blowing falsetto raspberries. The song was, nonetheless, quite a big hit, making number 12.”
14. Song Vom Hilfsarbeiter – Lisa Bauer
Go here for a funky, horned-up version of “Son of a Preacher Man” in German. This, on the other hand, is what I like to think of as the stern version. And still in German, of course.
15. Georgia on My Mind – Van Morrison
Van Morrison sticks to the now-standard Ray Charles template (which, itself, was a reinvention of the Jazz Age Hoagy Carmichael song), but he adds some spectacular vocal improvisations. This is Van at his best.
16. Gin & Juice – EZ Listening
You just have to listen.
ADDITIONALLY: Download the complete mix in a zip file.
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IMAGE: Pre-Columbian Peruvian relics from Antigüedades Peruanas
Nina Gordon has a number of covers for download on her website, including Phil Collins and Skid Row. You might think the joke would wear thin after "Compton," but apparently Nina Gordon disagrees.
Posted by: John | October 03, 2007 at 11:22 AM
It's good business, I suppose. Anyway, I've heard some of those covers, and they pale in comparison to "Compton." And, of course, she wasn't even the first to do the folk-rap bit; that was Dynamite Hack with "Boys in the Hood," I think. Oh, and Ben Folds does a brutal "Bitches Ain't Shit." Just brutal.
Posted by: Brendan Wolfe | October 03, 2007 at 12:32 PM
Here's the video of Snoop listening to the Gourds. Cultural recursion at its finest.
Posted by: Gregg | October 06, 2007 at 05:33 PM
#11 sounds like the Leningrad Cowboys to me.
Posted by: Cpt. Iglo | October 20, 2009 at 07:53 PM