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Tunes

100 best covers: #48 Sleeper “Atomic”

<< #49    |    #47 >>

“Trainspotting” was a film based on a book of the same name by Irvine Welsh and it was released too much critical acclaim and commercial success at the height of Cool Britannia in 1996. I remember going to see it in the theatres with my friend Tim, when it finally crossed the ocean into the North American market and I absolutely loved it. I later followed many of the actors that made up its young cast as they took full advantage of the film as a stepping stone and went on to great successful careers of their own. I had a copy of the film poster on my residence room wall, duly purchased that year at one of the campus Imaginus fairs, and read the Welsh novel during my next break in studies. And yes, you guessed it, I went out and procured a copy of the film’s soundtrack on CD.

Considered by many* to be one of the best film soundtracks ever, it combines classic alternative tunes from Brian Eno, Lou Reed, New Order, and of course, Iggy Pop, with more contemporary music of the day, which of course meant a smattering Britpop and Techno/Electronica. The mix works surprisingly as well as an album listen as it did match the feel and flow of the film. It ignited a resurgence in popularity for Iggy Pop’s “Lust for life” and made Underworld a household name on dance floors all around the world.

Four tracks in on the soundtrack is this cover of the Blondie track “Atomic”, done by a perhaps lesser-known** Britpop act named Sleeper . Unless I am mistaken, this was the very song that was playing during the scene in which Ewan McGregor’s character, Renton is at a club with his friends and he first catches sight of Kelly Macdonald’s character, Diane***. I won’t go any further lest I ruin part of the story for any of you yet to see the film but I will say that this song was seared into me and became one that I would play over and over again.

I had actually gotten into the band already with their debut album, “Smart”, released the previous year, and with “Atomic” fitting right in with their sound, I didn’t immediately realize it was a cover. When I did and tracked down the Blondie original****, I was somewhat tickled at how faithful a cover it was. It was as if the filmmakers wanted to include the original but somehow couldn’t get the rights and found some other band to replicate it almost to a tee. Admittedly, Louise Wener is not Debbie Harry, nowhere near comparable in the vocal category, but otherwise, I’d have a hell of a time telling the music apart.

Blondie fans might call this one sacrilege but I’d call this comparison even and given my fondness for Britpop, I might even give the Sleeper version the edge.

Cover:

The original:

*Or maybe just me.

**Although at the time, they were quite well-known, scoring a good number of hit UK singles.

***I also had taped to that same residence wall a picture torn from a Select magazine of Sleeper front woman Louise Wener dressed and mimicking the likeness of Diane from the Trainspotting promo shots.

****One of its many versions.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #18 Blur “Out of time”

<< #19    |    #17 >>

Blur’s seventh full-length album, “Think tank”, was their first in a large mittful that I didn’t rush out to purchase upon release. I had been a rabid fan for over a decade by this point and loved everything they did but as I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this Best tunes of 2003 series, I didn’t have a lot of disposable funding in the early 2000s and was forced to be excessively discerning in my CD purchases. And though I became familiar with some of its songs*, I didn’t really give the album a good listen until a decade or so later when I purchased it as part of the “21” vinyl box set and really got an understanding for how much I had previously underestimated its value.

Still, it’s a bit of an outlier in their catalogue, being the only album to which founding guitarist Graham Coxon didn’t contribute as a full-time member, only appearing on its final track. He left the group very early on in the recording sessions, after they had started them without him while he recovered in rehab and then, found himself not on the same wavelength as his bandmates**. And while it’s not quite as out there and as experimental as their previous output, “13”, it’s not exactly the accessible pop record that Damon Albarn had promised beforehand. Without Coxon’s influence, “Think tank” really reflects Albarn’s ever changing interests, less focus on guitar and an increased synthetic palette, and of course, it’s painted with a big world music brush.

“Out of time”, just as an example, features an Andalucian string group, a benefit of their having recorded a large part of the album in Marrakesh, Morocco. These strings come in during the latter part of the song, after the rhythm section of Dave Rowntree and Alex James have set the scene with the subdued drum beat and lackadaisical bassline. All the while, Albarn is crooning along to vaguely unintelligible sounds, like he’s performing with an orchestra of ghosts.

“And you’ve been so busy lately
That you haven’t found the time
To open up your mind
And watch the world spinning
Gently out of time“

He is addressing someone, or perhaps a gaggle of someones, who is completely removed from everything else going on in the world and that perhaps that someone is partially and inadvertently contributing to everything that is going on. When the orchestra (of ghosts or of Moroccan musicians) kicks in to gear, it’s like the rest of us should be joining in and rising up together.

*Including this one

**Coxon has, of course, since participated in all of the group’s reunion activities, including the surprise/surprising eighth album, 2015’s “The magic whip”.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: Alvvays “Blue rev”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Alvvays
Album Title: Blue rev
Year released: 2022
Details: Clear

The skinny: It had been five years between the release of Alvvays’ sophomore album, “Antisocialites”, and their third album, last year’s “Blue rev”. Thus, even though I’d been following the Toronto-based indie pop group since their early days and have both of their previous records on my shelves, I didn’t jump on the pre-order train for this one right away. I wouldn’t say I had tired of them or gone off the band in any way but perhaps just wary, taking a wait and see approach. Any hesitation melted away, though, when I gave “Blue rev” a go shortly after its release last October and I was more than pleasantly surprised at the group’s leaps and bounds to escape their allotted pigeonholes. I ordered a copy off Pop Music Toronto’s online store because they had a few of the clear pressings released by the group’s own Canadian-based label Celsius Girls on their virtual shelf. The album ended up placing at number two on Billboard my end of the year album list for 2022 and this record continues to be one I return to my turntable often.

Standout track: “After the earthquake”