Categories
Tunes

100 best covers: #45 Jane’s Addiction “Sympathy”

<< #46    |    #44 >>

Jane’s Addiction were one of those bands that I got into just as I was getting into ‘alternative’ music and my introduction was their commercial breakthrough, 1990’s “Ritual de lo habitual”. Of course, we now know that this was their ‘final’ album* before disbanding the following year. At the time, though, I was super excited about them and listened to both of their albums on cassette tape ad nauseum.

I later learned that they also had a self-titled live album that the band released a year before their major label debut, solely because they wanted their first release to be on an independent label. It was recorded at a small club in L.A. a bit before they had started generating a buzz and was later produced and mixed in-studio, including the addition of an applause track on some songs from another band’s live recording. Their performance is a bit messy at times but it aptly captures the excitement and energy of their live performances that garnered them such a following and for this reason, it’s still a favourite of mine and I included when I counted down my top ten albums for 1987. The track listing includes early versions of classics that would later be re-recorded for their proper debut, “Nothing’s shocking”, as well as a couple of covers: Velvet Underground’s “Rock n roll” and this one, The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the devil”.**

The original recording is probably my favourite ever song by The Rolling Stones, not that I really consider myself a huge fan of that band. I purchased a copy of “Hot rocks” on cassette tape when I was a teenager and that’s really only the material of theirs that I know. I do know that “Sympathy” is a rocking tune that really changed public perception of the band – for better and for worse – and has been covered by more than a few bands since then. Jane’s Addiction’s version feels somewhat faithful to the feel of the original, even including hand drums and maracas. Of course, Perry Farrell is not Mick Jagger. Their vocal styles are not quite diametrically opposed but they are different enough that it changes the overall feel. The cover is a lot more raw and angry than the original, perhaps a less slick devil but definitely not less sexy. And of course, there’s the live element as well that makes you think that everything might just fall apart at any given moment.

I still prefer The Stones’ original version of “Sympathy for devil”, it’s probably one of my favourite ever tunes, but Jane’s Addicition definitely makes it run a little faster and harder for the prize.

Cover:

Original:

*Final until they reunited more than a decade later and released a couple more.

**Listed simply as “Sympathy” on the album’s track listing.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: “1993 mix vol. I” (a mixed tape)

Much like the last time I posted one of these playlists based on an old mixed tape, I was downstairs in my basement recently, this time cleaning rather than looking for something, and I came across the same shoebox full of old cassette tapes. Of course, I stopped what I was doing for a good twenty minutes or so and went through said box to remind myself what was in there and to allow the memories of each to come flooding over me. I haven’t played any of these tapes in decades because I have long since dispensed with the last sound system that I had that could play cassette tapes and so I have no idea of any of them even play. I suppose I could get rid of some of the tapes I bought when I was a teenager because I likely now have it digitally or on vinyl format but I’m not certain I’d ever want to throw out any of the mixed tapes. They are as much a document of my own personal history as the photos, yearbooks, letters, and other random bric-a-brac I have stashed away.

Going through these cassettes, I decided it was time to do another of these playlists and opted to replicate one that I created myself, rather than one that was made for me, like the “Raging retro” playlist I previously shared. I chose “1993 mix vol. I” this time around because, as an artifact from 30 years ago, there’s a few fun things you can glean about it’s creator.

Who was 1993 JP Robichaud?

Well, he wasn’t yet inventing creative titles for his mixes, that’s for sure. For a tape called “1993 mix vol. I”, he wasn’t necessarily as concerned with putting together music from the year, indeed, given that it was the first volume, it was likely too early in the year for a mixed tape’s worth of music. Instead, the tape includes music to which I was listening at the time and going through the playlist, it’s obvious to me that I started with songs from the handful of CDs I had in my still new collection and then, moved into the purchased cassettes before finishing off the second side with songs from albums or mixes that had been recorded for me. I can also tell that it was still early on in my mixed tape making career because I hadn’t started strictly following my own self-imposed rule of one song per artist. Indeed, the two appearances by The Wonder Stuff on the tape’s first side betrays how big a fan I was of the band in the early days of 1993.

Some of the photos I’ve included here of the cassette and its J-card sleeve hint that I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I cut out letters from magazines to cobble together a cover and used stickers from old VHS cassette tapes to decorate the cassette. It reminds me that I would later get even more inventive in decorating these things, especially when I made them for others. And finally, the volume one in the title suggests that I fully intended to make more mixes before the year was up but memory does not serve at all as to whether there ever was a second volume created. There definitely isn’t one in the box.

Now before I get right into the playlist itself, here are some highlights that you definitely should check out:

      • The opening song, “Take 5” by Northside is the first song I’d ever heard by the lesser-known Factory Records product and the song that goaded me into purchasing my first CD, given that I was never able to find the band’s only album on cassette
      • I discovered the second edition of Mick Jones’ second band, Big Audio Dynamite II, before I ever really became familiar with his first band and the words to “Rush” were rarely far from my mind after I committed them to memory
      • As I mentioned above, The Wonder Stuff appears here twice, with two very different sounds: “No, for the 13th time” from their debut and “Welcome to the cheap seats” from their third album
      • The version of Spirit of the West’s “Political” here is the re-recorded rocked up version from “Go figure” because at the time, I was blissfully unaware of the far superior folkier original
      • The Barenaked Ladies were a few years from massive world status but they were already pretty big in Southern Ontario and “Hello city” was just one of the excellent tracks that graced their now classic debut album, “Gordon”
      • The Smiths’ “Please please please let me get what I want” closes things off as it did on many a mixed tape because its short length was often a perfect way to fill up the last bit of remaining tape

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist as it appeared on the original mixed tape:

Side A:
1. Northside “Take 5”
2. Teenage Fanclub “Is this music?”
3. The Wonder Stuff “No, for the 13th time”
4. The Lemonheads “Alison’s starting to happen”
5. The Cure “High”
6. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Suave & suffocation”
7. Depeche Mode “World in my eyes”
8. Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
9. The Charlatans “Weirdo”
10. The Wonder Stuff “Welcome to the cheap seats”
11. R.E.M. “Stand”
12. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack “Time warp”
13. Spirit of the West “Political”

Side B:
14. The Housemartins “I smell winter”
15. The Farm “Love see no colour” (unavailable on Apple Music)
16. Buffalo Tom “Velvet roof”
17. 808 State “Lift”
18. The Sisters of Mercy “More”
19. UB40 “Red red wine”
20. Barenaked Ladies “Hello city”
21. Primal Scream “Movin’ on up”
22. Suzanne Vega “Blood makes noise”
23. Morrissey “Tomorrow”
24. The Smiths “Please, please, please let me get what I want”

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #91 Pop Will Eat Itself “Wise up! sucker” (1989)

<< #92    |    #90 >>

I started this project of re-counting down my top 100 favourite eighties tunes just over a year ago and yet, I’m only at song #91!*

Pop Will Eat Itself’s track, “Wise up! sucker”, just snuck itself into the eighties, and subsequently, my list, being released in 1989. PWEI came out of the same Grebo music scene as another Stourbridge, England band, The Wonder Stuff (see track #96). In fact, both bands have their roots in a short-lived project from the early eighties, called From Eden and Miles Hunt and Clint Mansell remain friends today. PWEI very quickly moved on from their original pop punk influenced sound to the dark, drum machine- and sample-heavy music heard on “Wise up! sucker”.

This song comes from what many consider to be PWEI’s second album, “This is the day!… This is the hour!… This is this!” (I guess many don’t consider “Now for a feast” a proper album?) “Wise up! sucker” is a cacophony of the aforementioned drum machines and samples, along with drilling guitars and half-sung, half-rapped vocals and is instantly recognizable for its “She loves me… She loves me not” chorus. And yes, that is Miles Hunt singing back up.

I think I first came to realize that I liked these guys after dancing to this very song and drunkenly screaming the chorus on a Saturday night at a now defunct alternative music club in Oshawa called the Moon Room and meeting a girl on the dance floor that I would spend the rest of that summer courting. I never got the girl (I have since found a better one) but still love the tune.

Original Eighties best 100 position: #92

Favourite lyric: “You give me sixteen different flavours of hell” Have you ever been in a relationship like that?

Where are they now?: The band went on to many different projects after their breakup in 1996. Original member Clint Mansell has had a successful career scoring films, such as “Requiem for a dream” and “The wrestler”. In 2011, Graham Crabb resurrected the PWEI name and released a new album, though he was the only original member that performed on it. Since then, original members Richard March, Fuzz Townshend, and Adam Mole** have rejoined the group and a couple other records have followed.

*Though I have been making up ground of late…

**Clint Mansell is the only original member that is not currently with the band.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.