Would Sonic Youth have been the worst cover band ever?

Inspired by listening to the bonus tracks on Daydream Nation and remembering every single lousy cover from Sister, Dirty, EVOL, (at least that was a bonus track), etc...

ciccone youth were the best cover band ever so no

Yeah, I was gonna say -- "Into the Groove(y)," "Superstar," "Ca Plane Pour Moi," "Burning Farm" -- those are better than most of Sonic Youth's originals.

did good versions of "I wanna be yr dog" and "touch me I'm sick"

their awfulness at covers coincided with their awfulness as a band imo

The Fall Peel session is ace, esp Psychomafia

did a great "i wanna be yr. dog" w iggy. their covers of punk classics like "hot wire my heart", "personality crisis", "beat on the brat" and "touch me i'm sick" are inessential and (i always thought) kind of intentionally weak, but i like them for that. introduced me to crime, so for that i thank them.

oops x posts. and yeah, the fall peel sessions thing is fantastic, esp "my new house".

Nah most of their lousiest covers were recorded at their peak.

"(i always thought) kind of intentionally weak, but i like them for that"

I think I would have liked them more if it sounded like they were trying harder.

They do a great version of Neil Young's Computer Age

crüt is right, kinda strange thread

I can tell you that a Sonic Youth cover band would be the worst idea ever.

Mudhoney's cover of "Halloween" >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Sonic Youth's cover of "Touch Me, I'm Sick"

I can't really think of an SY cover that sucks tbh. Even the inessential ones are at least OK. And they introduced me to Crime and Kim Fowley.

xp admittedly that's the only decent SY cover I can think of.

I mean Nic Fit...

"Superstar" was great

They do a great version of Neil Young's Computer Age

― kornrulez6969, Tuesday, January 11, 2011 2:06 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

also their Ramones live medley (on various boots and ROIOs) is a lot of fun.

forgot about Nic Fit!

yeah computer age is great

Haha so apparently I am alone in thinking they are do a lot of really weak/half-assed covers.

I mean "Nic Fit" to me is like exhibit A!

Some of them are kinda ramshackle.

kornrulez OTM re: computer age. love that song to fuckin death.

and alex too: mudhoney's "halloween" wipes the floor with sonic youth's attempt to return the favor. did a fine job with spacemen 3's "revolution", too.

Like 'Beat On The Brat'

Haha so apparently I am alone in thinking they are do a lot of really weak/half-assed covers.

i'd kind of agree with you on "beat on the brat" (pointless) and "touch me i'm sick" (gutless). i probably should agree with you on "hot wire my heart" and "personality crisis", but i find those kind of charming, somehow.

Came in here specifically to post about how great the "Computer Age" cover is, but I see it was already covered.

"did a fine job with spacemen 3's "revolution", too."

I like the Spacemen's version of "When Tomorrow Hits" actually.

Has anyone heard their Saccharine Trust cover?

I like the Spacemen's version of "When Tomorrow Hits" actually.

yeah, i like it too. a good sight better than sonic youth's "touch me". have it on some old magazine giveaway 45. sniffin' rock or some such. too bad jason & sonic couldn't see the humor...

a lot of the covers are not the best, true.

Wanna Be Your Dog - OK, live sound iirc (on Confusion Is Sex)
Hot Wire My Heart - pretty great
Ramones live medley - awesome
Beat On The Brat - perfunctory.
Nic Fit - charming
I Am Right - is this a Redd Kross cover? it's OK.
Within You Without You - OK, could have been better.
Personality Crisis - half assed, some might say charming as per Nic Fit above.
Touch Me I'm Sick - terrible.
Fall covers - fantastic.
Computer Age - great.

and there's some good stuff on SYR 4 as well (which is after all an album of other people's scores), especially the Pauline Oliveros piece.

Did Sonic Youth actually cover Iron Maiden's "Hallowed Be Thy Name"?

"Bubblegum" - lousy
"Electricity" - lousy

No I guess they covered Alice Cooper's version... too bad. The former could have had great comedic value.

oh right ... I thought the Cooper was "Is It My Body"? which is also lousy.

Dint they do some beatles song on sgt pepperr knew my father?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallowed_Be_Thy_Name

"Hallowed Be Thy Name" is a song written by Steve Harris for the 1982 Iron Maiden album The Number of The Beast. It is considered one of the best heavy metal songs of all time.

I love you wikipedia.

Yes, "Within You Without You".

also did beach boys "i know there's an answer" on some tribute. think it's on the goo deluxe edition now?

it's not that great

Isn't there a Nirvana cover as some b-side as well?

Dunno, but they were on that carpenters tribute as well right?

Not to mention the versions of classical pieces

Yeah I don't know if I consider those covers. Obviously that album is a slightly different animal than most of the stuff we are talking about here.

xhuxk mentioned the "Superstar" cover above (as well as the Shonen Knife, Plastic Bertrand and Madonna covers.)

Sonic Youth did a lot of tribute albums didn't they?

sonic youth "covers" the destruction of a piano

Sorry I'm reading the thread on some dumb ass thing so I'm missing stuff

I haven't heard half of these, but The Whitey Album is sometimes my favourite SY album.

Also, it's fun to think of SYR4 as a "covers album" - I wonder if rockists go to classical concerts and moan "they don't even write their own songs".

Ticket to ride = shite

The worst cover band ever are called Northern Kings.

Northern Kings: an appreciation/bemusement thread

"Superstar" is fantastic IMO. Love, love, love the video too...No mention of the epic take on "I'm Not There?" Most underrated soundtrack of the 00s IMO. EVEN JACK JOHNSON DOESN'T EMBARRASS HIMSELF (Disclaimer: May not be possible for Jack Johnson to embarrass himself).

The only completely shithouse cover they did was "Addicted to Love". That was just painful. But, it was recorded in a karaoke booth in 5 minutes flat right? So ... eh.

I like "hotwire my heart" a lot.

"Superstar" is fantastic IMO. Love, love, love the video too...No mention of the epic take on "I'm Not There?" Most underrated soundtrack of the 00s IMO.

all of this is pretty much otm, that soundtrack is great

"Hotwire My Heart"!

Superstar kind of sucks and the Fall covers are OK but kind of annoying - Rowche Rumble in particular falls short.

"My New House" was alright tho.

i never heard the is it my body cover. is it good? one of my fave alice songs.

"Ca Plane Pour Moi" is really great, if it is possible for "great" to be attached to that song. "Don't wanna hear no Sonic Youth"!

Also, of all things, I really love their version of the Simpsons theme song.

Really, the thread fits whatever anyone wants to think about Sonic Youth: their covers display the full range of what is good and occasionally embarrasing about the band, lots of things to love or at least get a kick out of, but lots to pick apart if you are so inclined.

Scott, if you like Kim Gordon circa 1992, you will like it.

xxxp yeah My New House was alright, though MES himself has said that they completely missed the point.

"rowche rumble" isn't the best of the fall covers (that'd be "psycho mafia" & "my new house"), but it's respectable. i even like "victoria", the kinks by way of the fall, flex your head.

but you high, drug. "superstar" is p decent for what it is. one of the first in a long line of sad, wispy indie covers that attempt to reveal the hidden poignancy of familiar pop tunes (one of the first i encountered, anyway). and it was cool at the time to hear SY experimenting with pop sounds and elaborate production in that manner. "is it my body" is just lazy. love kim's delivery, but the performance seems totally disconnected. they're more at home on "bubblegum", the kim fowley cover that was the "superstar" b-side.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbr2PxWUMLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOx_PmNlLFo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR745XQ-fwY

MES himself has said that they completely missed the point.

Fairly sure The Fall didn't do cover versions at this point. ("Rollin' Dany" was the first, I think)

and fuck yeah, "ca plane pour moi" is great! that and "computer age" are probably my favorite sonic youth covers. very similar in sound & approach, too. sonic youth: rock band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZkKK_GZ8qU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ0cLPSfLrg

My New House was alright, though MES himself has said that they completely missed the point.

eh, to be expected, really

What would be the point of an MES-approved cover of a Fall song? Or, more to the point: in what bizarro-world would that exist.

is there a thread about what band would be the best cover band

Killdozer. Lock thread.

Oh, sorry. Would be is hypothetical. Hmmm.

feels pretty obvious to me that SY take crafting their own songs & sound pretty seriously but they mostly only play covers as a way to loosen up or because Thurston thought it would be funny or whatever. that's probably true of a lot of bands.

Sure, but most of those bands don't release those covers.

or because Thurston thought it would be funny
there's a bootleg where thurston tries in vain to get the band to play an impromptu "ticket to ride"

on B-sides, maybe, which is mostly what SY have done. iirc "Hot Wire My Heart" and "Nic Fit" are the only covers they've actually released on their proper full-length albums. (xpost)

oh right and "I Wanna Be Your Dog"

feels pretty obvious to me that SY take crafting their own songs & sound pretty seriously but they mostly only play covers as a way to loosen up or because Thurston thought it would be funny or whatever. that's probably true of a lot of bands.

― men are from mars, bruno has no penis (some dude), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 9:42 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

Sure, but most of those bands don't release those covers.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 9:44 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

always felt like the offhandedness of SY's covers was part of their band identity, the expression of a sense of humor that helped balance the seriousness of their craft. slacker cred, post-punk cereal-eating style points. ha ha, fuck, listen dude....

there's a bootleg where thurston tries in vain to get the band to play an impromptu "ticket to ride"

― tylerw, Wednesday, January 12, 2011 9:45 AM (3 minutes ago)

this has to be the same as on Master Dik (not a boot!)

yeah? i just have a tape (from the sister tour, north carolina, maybe?) -- don't know if i've actually heard the master dik version ...

on master-dik, it's part of a long suite of chopped up demos, radio interviews and live jabber, etc, right? maybe you've got a boot of the original source.

always felt like the offhandedness of SY's covers was part of their band identity, the expression of a sense of humor

Now this just makes them sound like Metallica :/

lol Metallica just stuffed all their covers in one EP though!

nic fit is great. within the context of Dirty it's like an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon.

i wanna be your dog is even better. taps into what was awesome about the original (Iggy reinventing psych by tapping into LSD's dissociative properties). Sounds more unhinged than the original

bubblegum - i like this a lot, but wasn't this the b-side to Star Power and not Superstar?

it's a shame that they never covered the White Album like they claimed they were going to...

Considering how meh their Beatles' covers are, I'm glad they didn't.

I Am Right - is this a Redd Kross cover? it's OK.

saccharine trust

"Bubblegum" is awesome! I love how Moore elongates the last syllable.

Lee's the male voice on "Bubblegum" actually

I genuinely didn't know.

Maybe as a B-side? I always turn off the Evol CD before it comes on.

3xpost

bubblegum - i like this a lot, but wasn't this the b-side to Star Power and not Superstar?

― Are you anticipating an end to the Age of Stupid? (Drugs A. Money), Wednesday, January 12, 2011 3:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yes, you are right! dunno why i remembered it differently. time + chemicals = duh

I remember it as the lousy track that closes the CD version (and of course the vinyl version also had the awesome lock-groove too.)

It's tough to follow Xpressway. I like Bubblegum a lot on it's own, probably better than Fowley's version, and I'm a big Fowley fan.

At the time, I didn't realize that Hotwire was a cover. I always thought it fit in pretty well with the rest of Sister.

The Fall covers are ok. The only Fall cover I've ever heard that stands on its own is Dymaxion's take on US 80's-90's. I don't know that it's better than the original, but it's interesting.

i think a lot of ire for "Bubblegum" is primarily for how bad a decision it was to tack it onto the end of one of their best album closers on the version of the record that most people own. DGC really should've just taken all those bonus tracks off the reissues and put them on a compilation.

Except for the ones on Bad Moon Rising!

And actually the Kill Yr Idols EP is awesome so really Confusion is improved as well. Just Sister and EVOL are lamed out by their bonus tracks.

haha that was kind of the asterisk in my head -- listened to it yesterday and reminded myself that i like "Ghost Bitch" and "Flower" more than almost anything on the proper album. still wouldn't mind them being on a well sequenced b-sides comp instead, though. maybe we can do a poll of '80s SY non-album trax? (xpost)

But Ghost Bitch is on the proper album, or is this some UK/US thing?

oh sorry i meant "Halloween" not "Ghost Bitch"

Flower/Halloween encapsulates everything great about Sonic Youth.