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100 best covers: #88 Iggy Pop “Real wild child (wild one)”

<< #89    |    #87 >>

I’m not going to lie. This post was supposed to be published a month ago. I created the skeleton and saved it as a draft, meaning to write some words on the song the next day. But well, it didn’t happen and the draft has kept getting pushed further and further out of sight as other posts somehow take precedence. It might’ve been lost forever (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating here) had my wife and I not gone out to Prime Burger Bar for dinner last Saturday night.

At some point during the typical twenty or so minute wait for our burgers to come up, I realized my right foot was tapping under the table and then, I recognized the song. “Do you know who this is?” I asked Victoria. She listened, pretended to think on it for a moment, and shook her head in the negative. I explained that it was Iggy Pop. She just shrugged and changed the topic.

From this innocuous conversation, I was reminded about the song, its energy, and that I still had words to write on it. Originally performed in the late 1950s by Johnny O’Keefe, Australia’s first rock n’ roll star, the song was purportedly inspired by a fight that broke out at one of his concerts between his rock fans and guests at a wedding happening downstairs. The fights morphed into riots which required intervention by the law and of course, a legend was born. The song’s title, “Wild one”, is also one of the nicknames bestowed upon O’Keefe, whom it appears to me was like a cross between Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis (someone who has also covered this song). His original version sounds like typical rock n roll today but I’m sure it was considered as dangerous to the youth and parents of the day as punk was in the seventies.

Which brings me back to James Newell Osterberg jr. (aka Iggy Pop). Indeed, this song could have just as easily been mistaken to be based upon him. Pop’s live performances with the Stooges and then solo throughout the seventies were definitely wild. He performed half naked, rarely sober, rolled around in broken glass, and pretty much invented the stage dive. Interesting, then, that his cover of this tune is relatively tame.

Recorded for his New Wave-influenced, 1986 album “Blah-blah-blah”, it almost doesn’t sound like him and you could be forgiven for mistaking it for Christopher Otcasek’s cover (which appeared on the “Pretty Woman” soundtrack). It’s got a danceable beat, sliding synths and riffing guitars, and meanwhile, sweat is flung everywhere while Pop sing/speaks, dripping cool. Yeah, it’s fun. Just listen to it and watch your feet start to move.

The cover:

The original:

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

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Tunes

100 best covers: #89 Rogue Wave “Everyday”

<< #90    |    #88 >>

Like The Raveonettes’ cover of “My boyfriend’s back”, which we saw at number ninety-seven on this list, this cover of “Everyday” by Rogue Wave appears on the soundtrack for the video game, “Stubbs the zombie”. As I mentioned in that other post, I’m the world’s worst gamer and so have never played said game but it sounds compelling, excepting of course, the other problem with it: this blogger is not a huge fan of zombies. In fact, I’m a massive wuss. I used to read all sorts of Stephen King novels and watch any horror flick I could get my hands on when I was a teenager and deep into my twenties. Then, I was indefinitely ruined by “28 days later”, a zombie scenario that almost seemed plausible by comparison and that has set the template for any zombie story that has since followed. I refuse to even watch “Shaun of the dead”, which I hear is hilarious. Nope. I just won’t do it.

But I digress.

The soundtrack for “Stubbs the zombie” is filled with renditions of 50s and 60s classics as covered by hot indie artists of the day. (Check out the rest of the track listing on the Wikipedia page for the game.) For me, this cover of the Buddy Holly standout was the biggest highlight, getting me into a band of whom I had not previously heard. It just feels so different and fresh. A song that is so ingrained in our rock and roll consciousness as Buddy Holly’s original is barely recognizable until frontman, Zach Schwartz starts in on vocals. Instead, it almost sounds like a faithful Smiths cover, all jangle and reverb, resembling a second cousin to “Please please please”, though Schwartz sounds nothing at all like Morrissey.

The original “Everyday” is tap-tappy, like a sped up grandfather clock, rock and roll’s biggest geek, rockabillying his voice and keeping our attention with upbeat chimes. Rogue Wave introduces wave after wave of rolling guitars and a much fuller sound altogether, not quite hiding the tapping rhythms in the back room. It is much more laidback but no less happy.

Which do you prefer?

The cover:

The original:

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

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Tunes

100 best covers: #90 Rufus Wainwright “Across the universe”

<< #91    |    #89 >>

It feels like forever since I’ve done one of these 100 best covers posts. In fact, I had to look back in my archives to see how long ago it actually was and then, got caught up in listening to Dum Dum Girl’s cover of “There is a light that never goes out”, all over again. So we go from The Smiths to The Beatles, two iconic British bands from very different eras and just over two months in between.

“Across the universe” was a John Lennon composition, consisting of some of his very favourite lyrics. Interesting, then, that it was shelved for so long and finally appeared first on a charity compilation album and then, on “Let it be”, mostly because of the footage of it caught for the documentary film of the same name. There are a few versions of the song floating around out there, one with singing bird sound effects bookending the music and of course, the more popular one remixed by Phil Spector.

Rufus Wainwright is Canadian singer/songwriter who is the offspring of American folk singer Loudon Wainwright III and Canadian folk singer Kate McGarrigle and the older brother of Martha Wainwright. His cover of “Across the universe” came about after the release of his second album, 2001’s “Poses”, and he was approached by Sean Penn to record a version of the Beatles song for his film, “I am Sam”. The initial plan was to use the original Beatles versions for the film and its soundtrack but the filmmakers were unable to obtain the rights for all the songs. Apparently though, the filming had been done using the originals already so the covers had to be recorded using the same time signatures.

Rufus Wainwright’s cover may be in the same time signature but his version is all him. Where The Beatles’ original is all psychedelic, spiritual, and soaring over a technicolor world, using all the studio bells and whistles, Wainwright’s is a mostly stripped down affair. It’s guitar layered on guitar and his vocal tracks layered upon each other. And those Wainwright vocals are the key, playing somewhere between opera, show tune, and glam rock, taking on a life of their own and bringing with them the inherent sadness of the song. Quite beautiful really.

The cover:

The original:

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