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So here’s a topsy-turvy, chicken and the egg kind of story.
I remember hearing “Games without frontiers” on AM radio as a pre-teen not really know who the artist was or what the song was about. I much later became a fan of Peter Gabriel when I picked up his “Shaking the tree” compilation on CD in the midst of my 80s retro kick in the late 1990s and there, reacquainted myself with the track. However, prior to that, in the early 1990s, I became a fan of Grebo jokesters Pop Will Eat Itself, mostly because of their relations with The Wonder Stuff and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, bands of whom I was already a big fan. Years later, some time in the early 2000s, whilst exploring some of PWEI’s back catalogue that I had yet to consume, I came across this cover they did of “Games without frontiers” and with a bit more digging, found that it was their contribution to a fundraiser compilation supporting the peace efforts in Northern Ireland, called “Peace together”.
Peter Gabriel’s original version of the song was recorded for his self-titled third album, released in 1980. It features Kate Bush on backing vocals, plodding percussive and bass synths, a drum machine mimicking congos, whistling, and sinister guitar lines dancing along the minor key. It is oft-considered an anti-war song with a title referencing a well-known European game show and lyrics that equate politics with children games, rhyming off names of children from different cultures, all playing together.
So a good choice then for a band to cover for an album promoting peace. Pop Will Eat Itself’s cover is longer, predictably rage-filled, and rife with samples. Though its rhythm and its use of rhythm as melody is the same, the tone is indeed very different. It feels like they packaged it all up, Gabriel included, and shot it off into an apocalyptic future world similar to that found in “Tank girl”. Yeah, it’s fun in its angst.
Indeed, both versions are a gas and make you feel urbane as your happily singalong, but I think I may be siding with original in terms of preference, even as I replay the cover with the volume cranked.
Cover:
Original:
For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.