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."
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."
Here's a question that came up today as the family and I were driving to the grocery store. If you had to limit your musical listening to exactly one band (or artist), who would it be?
The question came up as we backed out of the driveway with Squeeze's "Another Nail in My Heart" on the radio. It's not the first (or second or third) Squeeze song that comes to mind, but it's a darn good song. My wife went one further, saying that -- now that she's thinking of it -- if she had to only listen to one band for the rest of her life, it would be Squeeze.
Now, Squeeze wouldn't be my choice. I'd probably go for The Clash for sheer variety -- there's garage rock, punk, ska, dub and pop in The Clash catalog. So I throw it out there -- if you had to listen to one artist -- and only one artist -- forever, who would it be?
Ok, here's the game. On the road, driving in the car. You get to hear three songs in a row from a specific artist. What three do you choose? It could be their best, or something that just resonates with you. Seven days - seven artists - back and forth. Feel free to comment on your three from "said" group.
Today, let's start easy - The Clash.
1. "Clampdown" - I love the workingman's anthem. Gets me fired up!
2. "Police on My Back" - a cover, I know, but such a great version. The siren-like guitars, and the chours "What have I done?" I always end up speeding when driving listening to this song.
3. "Death or Glory" - We're gonna raise some hell...
There's a lot of lousy music lists out there... you know, the 100 best guitarists of all time, or the 500 best songs from the 1990s. (Really? Were there 500 good songs in the 1990s?) But I recently read a pretty creative list in a magazine published by the folks who bring us NME and Uncut of the 500 Lost Songs You Need To Hear Now.
Rather than counting down 500 songs in some contrived way, the lengthy list is broken down into sub-categories, for example "Soul" and "Punk" and "Krautrock" and so forth. But there's also subcategories encompassing specific artists -- like #191 to #182, all reserved for Blur. ("Young and Lovely" tops the Blur sub-list, and I can't disagree. You can really hear the band take a huge creative step forward with the songcraft of that tune.)
Other notables: At #340, it's Wire's "Outdoor Miner" from 1979, a song that was pretty much on the soundtrack to my live circa 1995. And somewhere between 252 and 281, The Clash make the list for "This is England", which is a phenomenal song despite being on the universally panned Cut the Crap LP.
"Paper Planes" by M.I.A. I always thought it lacked the bite that her earlier work has ("Fire Fire" and "Galang" which incidentally was co-written by Elastica's Justine Frischmann), but it's incredibly catchy with that Clash sample and schoolyard chant, and as violent as it sounds, it's actually not about violence. Someone ought to tell that 50 Cent and Lil Wayne, both of whom ruined the song with their versions. Someone ought to tell Wayne and Curtis that there's a difference between gang-banging and the perceived notion in society that immigrants are dangerous.
We're three games into baseball season, the Phillies are undefeated, and it's time to revive the age-old debate. If you were a baseball player, what would be your at-bat music?
You need something that's gonna rev up the crowd but also something with enough swagger and cred to make it worthwhile. And the song you choose says a lot about who you are. Here's a very funny video where Curtis Granderson struggles as he tries to pick his at-bat music for his first season as a Yankee:
If Granderson needs inspiration, he could look to his captain: During the Yankees 2009 World Series run, Derek Jeter took "Empire State of Mind" -- which was everywhere at the time and seemed like it was meant to be played at Yankee Stadium, and grand enough for a player like Jeter. Moving over to the Phils, Chase Utley comes to bat (when he's healthy) to the opening bars of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". Shane Victorino's unlikely selection is "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley. And dare I say Carlos Ruiz has a really good one in "Turn My Swag On" by Soulja Boy (For some reason, I love the snippet of that song they play for Chooch). Here's a YouTube clip of the Phillies' at bat music from 2010:
My playing days are long in the past, but if I were stepping up to the plate, I'd play "Clash City Rockers" by the Clash.
It has a brash opening guitar riff that would sound great in a stadium, and it packs a punch in about 12 seconds, which is really all you have time for.
My second choice might be "Tell 'Em" by Sleigh Bells -- because nothing is as loud and aggressive as the opening guitars in that song.
So let's hear it -- what song would you play as you come to bat?
If I wasn't a TV producer, I might be an urban planner. I've spent a good deal of time lately listening to The Suburbs by Arcade Fire, and since I've recently moved to the suburbs, I've also given a lot of thought to urban design and what makes a good place.
Turns out, I'm not the only one. Aside from the aforementioned Arcade Fire, here are some other great songs that are essentially about urban planning.
"My City Was Gone" - The Pretenders
Probably my favorite Pretenders song -- not saying too much as I'm not a fan of the band generally. But this one has that great bassline as Chrissie Hynde sings about how she went back to Ohio only to find her hometown of Akron was unrecognizable -- with a missing downtown and farms paved over for shopping malls.
"Council Houses" - Denim
Quick -- name another song that laments mid-century tower blocks conceived by the likes of Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe. You can't. That's why this 1996 song is so great. "Council houses/In the city/Who would want to pay the rent on this concrete slum imprisonment?" Denim were a glam band formed after the dissolution of the British indie band Felt, but this song makes the projects -- and their architecture -- anything but glamorous.
"London's Burning" - The Clash
How about an entire verse about London's highways? "I'm up and down the Westway/In and out the lights/What a great traffic system -- it's so bright!/I can't think of a better way to spend the night/Than speeding around underneath the yellow lights."
"Cities" - Talking Heads
David Byrne sings of checking out cities to live in -- London, Birmingham, even El Paso. Turns out, Byrne is a real urban planning guy -- check out his book "Bicycle Diaries".
"Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"
The inspiration for this post -- made all too real as I hurtle down Route 3 in suburban New Jersey. The shopping malls around here really do rise like mountains beyond mountains.
I rode the bus to work this morning with a family from Oregon who had never been to New York City. They were very excited about their first trip, and I came away singing this song (for no good reason).
