Sinister: cover me badd

[Stuart Gardiner]

On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, Robert McTaggart wrote:

> The only
> good reasons for doing cover versions are to do something completely
> different (some of us are already working on our Gabba version of "Fox
> in the Snow"), to cover something Godlike, but relatively unknown and
> bringing it to a wider public (like Mick Harvey's Gainsbourg
> tributes), or to "take a shite song and make it better", like Saint
> Etienne did with "Kiss and ma..."....why are you all looking at me
> funny?

I'd agree that there's no point just copying a song - Placebo's version of
20th Century Boy springs to mind as being identical to the original, why
bother? But I think so long as it is noticeably different (and as such
quite unexpected) it can work well. Watching the Divine Comedy last night
playing Radioactivity by Kraftwerk was great, and although I don't think
it was as good as the original it was different enough and suprising
enough to be worthwhile. So if you're planning a techno remix of I Could
Be Dreaming, or a "Vic Reeves, Pub Singer" rendition of Sleep The Clock
Around, it would be worth the effort (even if it turns out rubbish). The
only other reason I can think of to cover a song is if you love it and
none else knows it, as seems to have been the case with Poupee de Son (or
whatever it's called); but surely everyone here already knows all the B&S
songs backwards?

Oh well, each to their own I guess...

Big Stu

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