Indie acts doing covers of pop/rap/RnB songs: Classic or Dud?

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i can see that but i don't like the way it was said and the sort of people who are saying it, nor the reasons they are...

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

It seems a bit snarky to on one hand decry people for not being open minded enough to enjoy pop/r&b etc. because they are knee deep in indie rock whatever, then turning around and saying that it is crap commentary when they do a cover of such music.

I actually think this is a core point. The whole 'snarf, ha ha, look at us' attitude is indeed crap, but essentially there's a weird no win scenario posited in all this:

INDIE PERSON: "I like this, that and the other popwise."
OTHER PERSON: "You're only doing that to follow trends/seem hip/to make fun of it."
INDIE PERSON: "No I'm not! Jeez! Here." *plays version of song*
OTHER PERSON: "That was shit and why did you bother?"
INDIE PERSON: "Fine, fuck you."

But you could expand this out if you like. Personally I think it's illustrative not of the power of songs or performers or whatever but ARRANGEMENTS. Which may seem strange, but consider -- I think there's a lot of (justifiable) fear and loathing over the idea of reducing a song down to a guitar jangle, ripping out whatever it is sonically that really captivates. Lingering fears of rockism, if you like, the whole 'argh, it's only validated because you can do a folk singalong to it? that attitude is crap!' And who can blame people for feeling that way?

Britney is cynical and transient AND hooky and thrilling.

See, it's funny you say that because I'm still amazed so many people have covered "Baby One More Time" when I think it's incredibly unmemorable and dull. "Oops I Did It Again" is the song that works, and as Kate St. Claire said once, it's all because of the bassline. And interestingly Fuck have in fact covered it.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

The choice of BOMT in that case shows that what's affecting people is Britney-the-concept - or even pop-the-concept. BOMT is Britney's best known song so people covering it might be doing it cos they want to reference BRITNEY or even POP not the track itself.

Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

A lazy shorthand, then. I figure if you're going to reference pop, go collage.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 14:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

dud, every single time, serious or ironic, total and utter fucking dud.

Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ned, Richard Thompson has also covered "Oops! I Did It Again" in concert. I think the main reason it isn't as canonized as "Baby One More Time" is because the song was kinda forgotten due to the wonderful mindfuck of the "Oops..." video.

As for Tha Irony: Beck is a big, big fan of contemporary R&B, I'd say it's pretty silly to just assume his "Cry Me A River" is ironic, especially considering he's been in such a boringly earnest mode lately, *and* "Cry Me A River" fits in with the songs on Sea Change thematically. Flaming Lips and Fran Healy of Travis have both been very public about their genuine admiration of "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" and "Baby One More Time". So that's that settled then (unless they have IRONY GUILT!)

Apart from that I can't comment because I've never heard any of these versions, except Travis' Britney cover which I remember quite liking at the time (mainly because I've never liked Britney's voice much.)

Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'd say it's pretty silly to just assume his "Cry Me A River" is ironic

Yeah, I was about to say that whole assertion seemed strange. Too bad the song itself bites, but that's another matter. ;-)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

somehow I suspect that if Nelly covered a Flaming Lips song - or if Justin Timberlake did a Strokes tune - the majority of posters on this thread would hail it as "genius", a "hilarious pisstake", etc. Which is total bullshit - the only thing that matters isn't the band's intents or their "attitudes" towards the song or whatever - it's if the cover actually sounds good and does something interesting with the original material. I feel like I'm stating the obvious here... but whatever.

POPISTS!

Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

pop has eaten itself so are we now firmly ensconced in the regurgitation era?

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:52 (twenty-one years ago) link

and i'm inclined to agree with Shakey

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

Shakey's probably OTM... really, how different is this from perennial (and unfathomable) ILM favourite DJ Sammy?

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's very rare for rap or R&B acts to do covers, though - sampling is the preferred method. My preferred method as a listener, too: maybe this discussion is really about 'covers' vs 'samples'.

Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:56 (twenty-one years ago) link

Plenty of other R&B people did covers of Phil Collins records and they stank, so I can't see any reason why R&B covers of The Strokes would be any good and I don't rate DJ Sammy!

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

Because DJ Sammy is good you fools.

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 15:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ally he's worse than Nikka Costa ;)

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm not agreeing with you on this one Ally... funny I can see, good I can't!

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

Chaki doing Prince = CLASSICKER THAN FUCK.

nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:02 (twenty-one years ago) link

Is it that DJ Sammy's good or what he's working with/in that's good, that's the real question. DJ Sammy not some dude in corner in coffeehouse on acoustic guitar = an improvement (is what I think Ally is saying).

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

DJ Sammy is good. But Dom is right, he is doing exactly the same thing. He's identifying great songs within the corpulent hulks of AOR classics and de-furring their arteries with a rigorous Eurotrance treatment. Just like Travis etc. allow great songs a 'chance to shine' by turning them into pedestrian strumalongs. Which approach you prefer - and which type of audience button-pushing - is up to you, I suppose.

Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Irony" needn't necessarily mean not-liking-the-song: plenty of the examples here have the aww-shucks irony of bands who may well like the song but nevertheless find something ironic about their own decisions to perform it. (And surely they know good portions of their audiences will be reacting to the same thing.) The same tension is all over the indie/pop divide, a million times over with hip-hop: no matter how much the acts like what's on the other side, they're all crushed and vexed by some sense that they could never actually be what's on the other side. Because actually crossing would be this bold and massive thing: honestly, can you imagine Fran Healy really performing Britney? What sort of over-the-top lunacy could actually inspire that, and how could it not seem ironic? So it becomes a matter of limitations -- the most these bands can do is to approach the songs in the ways they know how. It's not completely fair to expect much more, but you do run into problems: (a) pop songs often sound pretty boring in a strummy earnest style, and yes, they have trouble singing them; (b) the rhetoric of indie can make it seem like the band's implying that the songs are "better" in strummy earnest style, as if through their immense brilliance and sensitivity they've unearthed the gem at the center of this piece of pop "trash"; (c) they just can't help giving it the ironic karaoke shrug. (Yo La Tengo, when playing that soul-disco track off of their last record, would do faux-Temptations dance moves: they wrote the damn thing, and they still had to chuckle and make the announcement, "Look, we're Yo La Tengo and we're doing some vaguely funky pop!")

There should be something just interesting about the practice -- cross-genre covers are usually great, an old thing stylized in a new way -- but it seems as if there are just too many tensions and conflicts running between indie mores and pop mores for the acts to be able to do it without stepping, intentionally or not, right on some sort of mine. Unfortunately dud. The acts need to get it out of their systems in their teenage pop-punk band days, if at all possible. And if they're going to try it after that, I for one would like to see them really try it, awful and embarrassing as that would be in most cases.

Is Tico Tico who I think it is?

nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

I guess it's just that one approach makes me laugh (and it's not good, it's just fun!) and the other annoys me, so I guess I prefer DJ Sammy

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

NB I don't think DJ Sammy is "rescuing" songs at all, just updating them. The jet-fuel AOR grandeur of those tracks is completely wiped off by age and stylistic change, leaving most of us with no ability to even tell there was any jet-fuel grandeur there in the first place: all DJ Sammy does is load them up with the modern trance equivalent. He retrofits the songs to be exactly what they were in the first place.

nabisco (nabisco), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm completely dumbfounded by Ally's Beck-hate. WTF!?!

nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

Teenage pop-punk covers are a bit of an exception here, they're almost always enjoyable.

Nabisco - yes, almost certainly! There's a sensible reason for the identity-switch though.

Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think the crucial thing with Sammy is also that he seems to give these olds tired records a new lease of life and that's what's "good" about him (although I just can't quite yet get my head around actually saying that he's good!), whereas the other covers just knock the sparkle out of the songs in question...

Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

Hm...yes, I now see why Tico Tico is saying what he does in a new guise, bless 'im. :-)

Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

I love Built To Spill's cover of "I Try", because I really love the song and sing it all the time, but my voice is closer to Doug Martsch's than it is to Macy Gray's.

alex in montreal, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

Why is my Beck-hate confounding? Did you expect me to be a Beck fan? Is there something about me that screams "I LOVE BECK"?

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

YES. No I dunno, he just seems so adorably unhateable, and I love Beck, and I love you, and ARGH THE CONFLICT IN MY MIND IS TOO MUCH!

nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

I can pretend to like Beck if it makes you feel better?

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't hate Beck, but I seriously cannot understand why he is so fawned over.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:44 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Just to address the initial post before I get caught up, in what Bizarro universe are the Vines, Coldplay and Beck defined as "indie"?"

In the insistent-on-pigeonholing media-driven musical world in which we live. I could have used the loathesome word "alternative" instead so count yourself lucky.

Apparently, Beck compared the opening hook to "Cry Me A River" to operatic horror, Phantom Of The Opera-style music. I take this as pisstaking.

Nick H, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

>>This dates back at least to Age of Chance's "Kiss" in the mid 80's
There was a brief fad following this - PigBros (IIRC) did Word U<<

Not gonna read this whole thread (look -- indie people are allowed to use songs by black artists just like the stones and zep and dylan amd elvis did; they don't have to be "respectful", they just have to not suck, which not-sucking is of course rare -- "irony" is nothing at all new, and nothing that indie-rockers invented, and nothing bad in and of itself, and nothing black artists for crissakes don't partake in across and amidst the racial spectrum as well). And I noticed that somebody mentioned "Hollywood Swinging" by the Big Boys. But I just wanted to throw Robert Wyatt's version of Chic's "At Last I Am Free" and James Chance's version of "Don't STop Till You GEt Enough," both of which predated either Age of Chance OR the Big Boys, in there. Ok.

chuck, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah, but Beck is right. Perhaps this is the conundrum of Beck, he doesn't realize his pisstake is actually not pisstake at all?

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 16:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

And oh yeah, Magazine covered Sly Stone, and Elvis Costello covered Van McCoy (I think it was), and Rick Rubin's band Hose (!) covered Rick James and I think Hot Chocolate, and Alan Vega covered Hot Chocolate. Etc.

chuck, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

On a side note, the only "antithesis" of the cover title I can actually think of is that R&B singer who did a cover of "Last Nite" by the Strokes, and her name escapes me for the minute. It was shit, anyway.

Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

damn it why is it that when ppl switch their identities I can never guess who it is, this driveth me nuts

J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

It's simon trife.

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

two more classics: shudder to think - "so in to you", 100 flowers - "dizzy miss lizzy"

dan (dan), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 17:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

I liked the Flaming Lips cover a lot, and found it very funny. There has never been a good ironic punk cover, and indie irony is just as bad.

I REALLY seriously doubt Beck's cover of Justin is mean spirited at all. Of any "alternative" act I've seen interviewed, he seems to be the one that generally likes mainstream acts the most.

I'd enjoy hearing his too, because the problem with Justin has always been him shoving his dire voice over great beats.

David Allen, Tuesday, 29 April 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago) link

i had a dream the other night wherein a low-style act covered a destiny's child song (i forget which, something off of writing's...) and it was wonderful

jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 18:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

Baxendale did a rubbish cover of "Say My Name," basically illustrating the dilemma Nabisco notes above.

amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 18:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

does anyone here actually like music?

kissmyfist (kissmyfist), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 18:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

No.

Ally (mlescaut), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 18:57 (twenty-one years ago) link

Do Soft Cell and Dexy's doing n. soul covers fit into this?

Grace Jones did a pretty good version of She's Lost Control.

Ferg (Ferg), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 19:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

Siouxie & The Banshees covering 'Dear Prudence' - example of 'indie' band covering pop song successfully?

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

probably doesnt count tho

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 19:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

Mull Historical Society did a cover of It Takes More on Re:Covered last night that was so glaaaaaaaaaah it made me want to find my copy of Loss and CRUSH IT TO DEATH. This may well have been partly down to Colin McIntyre's excessively smug face, though.

On an earlier edition of Re:Covered, Liberty X covered High And Dry. They were all sat on stools and were all "Oooh, we're well cred, us - IN YOUR FACE MYLEENE - man, we so skill." It was a bit irritating.

William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 19:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh, and Kelis used to do a cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, which I remember all my friends hating.

William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 19:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

best cover ever: eugene chadbourne's "oh yoko"

dan (dan), Tuesday, 29 April 2003 20:35 (twenty-one years ago) link


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