Cover to Cover

By the Bel:

Remember that TV show ‘Third Rock from the Sun’?

Remember the cute young kid, Joseph Gordon-Levitt?

No?

Okay so I’m old. But you’ll see the re-runs eventually.

Anyway, he’s covered Lady Ga Ga’s song ‘Bad Romance‘. The clip can be found here… *contains a few swear words*

It got me thinking, mathematically speaking there can only be a certain number of songs ever made. After they’ve all been written, sung, and made us all either love them or loath them, the following generations will just have to do covers.

And boy oh boy there are some shockingly bad ones out there. Some pretty good ones too thankfully.

As an ex cover band singer, I think there is nothing quite so amazing as getting that song to sound the same yet different. Spiced with your own brand of panache. I did, however, kill quite a few songs within the 3 gig span of my singing career. And not in a good way. Girls are just not designed to sing Pearl Jam songs.

Studio magic can help some covers become an epic success for the second or perhaps third time around, and at the same time it can totally ruin the memories you may have made with the song as you heard it originally.

Adding on catchy little call and response adlibs in covers has become a fad. ‘Do ya think I’m sexy,’ Just doesn’t sound the same for me without the ‘Do ya? Do ya?, Do ya?’ that the band T-Shirt added in 19 something or other.

Then there’s the mess of combining songs to make them different enough to be able to throw in some new lyrics. Kid Rock should be ashamed of himself for mixing ‘Werewolves in London’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ to make that irritating thing that got him on the charts this year.

Occasionally there’s a weird mix that catches you unawares. We called them club remixes when I wasn’t yet old enough to go to clubs. They’re now called mash up’s. The most stand out one for me was the McSleazy remix of Marilyn Manson’s cover of ‘Tainted Love’ and Darren Hayes’ song ‘Insatiable’

That one, I think, just has some history behind it for me. I can remember sitting in grade 10 maths having a huge argument with the hot guy I had a crush on, about which musical act would be more enduring Savage Garden or Marilyn Manson. This argument lasted almost all year. He told me my Savage Garden memorabilia would end up sitting in the back of a cupboard come the year 2000, and Manson would still be touring. I told him this was a load of rubbish, Savage Garden would last forever and be touring like the Rolling Stones (or as I like to call them, the strolling bones)

But as we now know he was right. I was seriously wrong. I still think it’s hilarious Savage Garden may be dead and buried, but the lead singer can still mix it up with the king of freaky himself.

As for Gordon-Levitt’s cover of Ga Ga… I’ll let you decide.

What’s the best and worst cover songs you’ve ever heard?