The People Speak

In my day job, I cover politics and frequently report on public opinion polls. Today, I got an email from Public Policy Polling, a pollster we often cite, with results of a poll they conducted on music.

Some highlights:
Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and the Beach Boys are overall very popular: All three have favorability ratings in the 70s and unfavorability in the teens. Not so for Michael Jackson, who's 48 favorable, 44 unfavorable. And Madonna and Kurt Cobain are under water in terms of favorability -- more people have unfavorable views of them than favorable views. They even polled on Morrissey, who scored a 17 percent favorable rating versus 31 percent unfavorable (with 52 percent not sure).

Now, when you break things down by political persuasion, things get interesting. Democrats overwhelmingly have a favorable view of Michael Jackson, while Republicans do not. And when you ask people who their favorite Beatle is, Democrats say John Lennon while Republicans say Paul McCartney.

Finally, Republicans say the 1950s were the best decade for music. Democrats say it's the 60s. No surprise, there. But overall, three quarters say the best musical decade was either the 50s, 60s or 70s. My favorite musical decade -- the 80s -- only got 15 percent. But at least that beat the rock-and-rap 90s, which had a paltry 6 percent! Sorry, Limp Bizkit.

Cover Me...Volume 4

A good cover song should spotlight the song in a different light.  A cover song is weakest when, say a band does the cover in the same vein as a predecessor.  Take "I Fought the Law"  - probably one of the most covered songs  in rock & roll.   Originally written by Sonny Curtis in 1959, it gained notoriety when the Bobby Fuller Trio covered it in 1966.  Thirteen years later, the song gained a second life when the Clash took it on and transformed it from a ballad of love lost, to an anti-establishment anthem.  In 2004, Green Day, the main stream punk, band decided to cover it, but did no justice to the song, playing it exactly like the Clash did in '79.  As stated in the movie Multiplicity,

"You know how when you make a copy of a copy, its not
  as sharp as... well... the original."

That is what happend to Green Day's version.

The Clash

 Green Day

Or maybe a country version suits you better: The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

So for today's cover song, I chose Lionel Richie's "Hello" off his mulch-platinum album, Can't Slow Down.  The song is probably most famous for the video, with Richie stalking a blind girl, who reciprocates her love for him by creating a clay bust of his head. The song is sappy with it's iconic line "hello, is it me you're looking for..." and a smooth jazz guitar solo.

The cover is by punk rock super-group, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes.  The Gimmes are nothing more than a cover band who wear quirky, matching outfits like Hawaiian shirts, or Western wear. or Nehru suits with a fez. They give a completely original take on the song until the end (which nearly ruins the song) when they close with the infamous Three Stooges "Hello." 

Cover Me Volume 3

Here's another cover comparo:

It's the great "Are Friends Electric?" by Gary Numan's band Tubeway Army. In this country, everyone  remembers Numan for "Cars", but "Are Friends Electric" was a #1 hit in England and the first synth chart-topper in the post-punk era. Numan, it should also be noted, had a string of great tracks including "Down In The Park" as he became the first true synth rock star.

Thirty years later, Jack White formed the band The Dead Weather in Nashville with fellow Raconteur Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart of The Kills, and Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age. One of their more inspired efforts was a re-imagination of the Numan classic.

So it's Tubeway Army's 1979 original (from "Top of the Pops"):

Versus The Dead Weather's cover:

For me, it's not even close. It's the original all the way. And while I respect The Dead Weather's choice to cover this song, I can't get past the overwrought drumming by Jack White on this track, especially starting at the 3:06 mark and continuing through the end of the song. He just takes over and decides he's the biggest thing about the song, and it just kills the whole thing for me.

I may actually prefer Weezer's cover version better:

Cover Me...Volume 2

Let's compare cover versions to their original songs, and decide which one we like best.

For our second contest, we have the song "Raspberry Beret". Originally written and performed by Prince, the Hindu Love Gods (REM's side project with Warren Zevon) had a different take on it. 

So Prince is the original:

And the Hindu Love Gods cover five years later, with less lyrics:

Which do you prefer? For me, it's the cover - by a hair. The REM rhythm section along with the Peter Buck guitar riff is one of the coolest cover interpretations I have heard.  Gives it a different life to a different audience. 
 
If the answer is neither, perhaps you'll like the Big Smith bluegrass version.

A Year and a Day...RIP MCA

"M.C., for what I am, and do
The A is for Adam, the lyrics: true..."

It's been a year and a day since we lost one third of the "triple trouble" and my hip hop idol, Adam "MCA" Yauch.  It was great to see how fondly he was remembered.  Rolling Stone ran a nice article remembering Yauch, and even Backspin the old school hip-hop channel on Sirius XM did a great tribute to the man that could lay down rhymes with the best.

More importantly, in Brooklyn it was anointed "MCA Day" with a park dedicated in his honor.  My Discordants partner went down to pay his respect and see so many others doing the same.  Adam "Ad Rock" Horovitz spoke at the ceremony that seemed to be enjoyed by many.

I think this picture of Ad Rock with Yauch's mother, Ad Rock's sister and some city bureaucrats speaks for itself.

Like Ma Bell, you have the ill communication.

Johnny Marr at Irving Plaza

It was probably two songs into Johnny Marr's set last night at Irving Plaza that I realized I had died and gone to heaven. I was hearing "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" -- a Smiths song being played by a Smith.

"Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" is one of the strongest songs off the Smiths last studio record Strangeways Here We Come. But I associate it very closely with Morrissey, perhaps because the video features the Moz and a bunch of lookalikes riding bikes around Manchester. Last night -- at least for me -- it became a Johnny Marr song.

The Smiths aren't coming back. There won't be a reunion -- the personalities are too strong, the divisions too deep. So that leaves the 40-something Smiths fan with two choices: Morrissey or Marr. Whose stamp is more important on the Smiths? Obviously, they were equally important. But would you rather hear Morrissey sing with a backing band that can't handle the sublime guitar parts that made the Smiths shine? Or would you rather go straight to the source, and see Johnny Marr?

For me the answer was easy. And my incredibly high expectations were more than met at last night's show. Marr's guitar work, of course, was as fantastic as ever -- even better than the studio albums would lead you to believe. And as a frontman, he's surprisingly good, with a genuine, rock star cool that doesn't come off as affected or cheesy. He kicked off with "The Right Stuff Right" and played a lot of his new solo album The Messenger, culminating in my song of the year so far, "New Town Velocity".

But it was the Smiths tracks -- "Stop Me", "Bigmouth Strikes Again", "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out", "London" and, of course, "How Soon is Now?" -- that really got the crowd going.

Marr handled the Smiths songs very well. His voice doesn't have the character of Morrissey's -- for better or worse -- but he sung them well. And therein lies the inherent conundrum in all of this: What does Marr think when he sings Morrissey's words? He didn't tip his cap to his erstwhile partner the whole night, which, considering how nice a guy he seems to be, was, at least to me, a surprise. But then again, it's Marr's music, so he has every right to take ownership of it. And I'm sure Morrissey's not thinking about Marr when his band plays Marr's music.



Anyway, the set had a few surprises: A cover of the Crickets' "I Fought the Law" (played faithfully to the Clash version) and two Electronic songs -- "Forbidden City" and a terrific guitar version of "Getting Away With It."

The show also surprised me culturally. Sure, the crowd was largely older -- lots of guys in their 40s, many with thinning hair. But there was a good crop of younger kids, too, and it's good to see them turn out for a guy who has influenced so much indie music over the past 20 years. One side note: there was an older Miami Vice looking guy and his equally older girlfriend or wife standing near me and I overheard them talking before the show about how no one in the crowd "listened to [The Smiths] the way we did" and that the "kids" in the crowd can't possibly be true fans like them. And then to prove they were the assholes I suspected them to be, the guy got into a shoving match with someone as the show got underway. Nice.

Cover Me... Volume 1

Let's compare cover versions to their original songs, and decide which one we like best.

For the inaugural contest, we have the song "Girls Talk". Originally written and performed by Elvis Costello, it was made popular by pub rocker Dave Edmunds only to appear a year later as an Elvis B-side.

So Elvis Costello is the original:

And Dave Edmunds is the cover, despite being released a year earlier:

Which do you prefer? For me, it's the original Elvis Costello version, despite the cheeriness of the Edmunds version.Given the chord structure of that tune, it's hard to hear anyone else but Elvis sing it.
 
If the answer is neither, perhaps you'll like the Linda Ronstadt version:

(By the way, did you know "Queen of Hearts" -- the song that Juice Newton made famous in this country was originally a Dave Edmunds tune?)