I know that I had promised another set of cover tunes, but it can wait. The overall set isn’t really that great, anyway. Rare, yes, but not great.
God doesn’t get a whole lot of face time here on Popdose – and truth be told, I’m as guilty of that as everyone else – and technically, this song is no exception. The artist who wrote it, though, Derek Webb, is somewhat of a giant within the Christian pop community. Or, at least that is my perception of him, since I don’t really have an insider’s perspective of the scene. I can see where he might be viewed as a (*adopts Tina Fey twang*) maverick for making pop records that focus on social injustice and loving thy brother rather than the tried and true method of treacly arrangements, melba toast instrumentation, and a heaping dose of “Jesus.” Webb’s 2007 album, The Ringing Bell, is a pop gem in the vein of Matthew Sweet and Neil Finn, and his 2008 EP with wife Sandra McCracken has the best song Sheryl Crow never wrote (”When the Summer’s Gone”). Dude’s got skills.
He also has balls the size of watermelons, because for his latest album, Stockholm Syndrome, Webb has raised his protest flag even higher, delivering some scorching anti-war rants. But the really strange thing about Stockholm is the sound; Webb has shelved his classic guitar pop in favor of something more, um, contemporary. Oh, let’s stop beating about the bush – it sounds like a Beck record. Cut & paste, drum machines…it’s as far removed from The Ringing Bell as possible. And in truth, it’s an effort that’s easier to like in spirit than in execution. As my best friend Tim rightfully observed, Stockholm Syndrome is one of those albums that actually sinks in better when it’s not listened to from start to finish.
And it was that way that I found a song that Webb should send to Justin Timberlake, stat. (more…)
MAXIMUM THREE GUESSES between updates of the list, to give everyone a chance to play. An update of the list is when I post the entire list of correct guesses with the words “OFFICIAL UPDATE.” “Guess” is officially defined as “attempting to identify any one song.” Therefore, one comment that lists three songs counts as three guesses.
While I’m not going to be a stickler for spelling and punctuation, you must guess the correct musician and song title to a close approximation.
How the game is played: I have uploaded twenty-five very brief song clips. Please bear in mind that both my record collection and knowledge of music are probably 5% of that of Scraps’, so these quizzes won’t be nearly as comprehensive – or even hit-based – as his were. I will use mostly well-known songs, but I reserve the right to use something obscure if it suits my needs, like it does this week. Live versions and covers are also fair game, though I will stay away from remixes, because that’s just mean.
There is a puzzle this week, and the songs in the game will offer a clue as to the puzzle song’s identity.
I suggest subscribing to the comments on the post to more easily follow the progress of the game. Remember — please! — NO MORE THAN THREE GUESSES between updates of the list. Have fun!
While Mr. Dunphy’s upcoming Friday Mixtape is one of the most esoteric tributes to All Hallow’s Eve that you will ever see, I chose a more commercial (read: lazier) path to celebrating my second-favorite holiday of the year. Now dance, you fuckers.
Ministry – Everyday Is Halloween
I hope your dancing shoes are comfortable, because this puppy is ten and a half minutes long. I couldn’t believe it when I moved to Chicago and people told me that “Halloween” was used locally to promote Miller Lite or something else anathema to everything Alain Jourgenson later stood for. Jourgenson has since dismissed this song, along with everything that came before Twitch, but I’m sure he doesn’t dismiss it enough to send back the royalty checks. (more…)
Last but certainly not least, Disc Three of Ruby Trax. And there is just no gray area when it comes to the opening song.
In late 1992, the idea of Jesus Jones covering Jimi Hendrix was viewed one of two ways: it was either the most awesome idea ever, or grounds for justifiable homicide. (Bear in mind, this came a full year before the Hendrix tribute album Stone Free, where everyone from the Cure to PM Dawn took Jimi’s songs for a ride.) He’s the greatest guitarist of all time, and they…play keyboards! (*Shake fists at God*) As Popdose resident remix geek, I’m guessing you already know which side of this debate I’m on.
Jesus Jones’ historical legacy is of the one-hit wonder variety, but let’s remember something: their 1991 album Doubt was a damned fine record, and in fact spawned two Top Five hits, not one. (Whither, “Real Real Real”?) So if Mike Edwards decides in 1992 that he wants to tear a Jimi Hendrix song to ribbons, no one is going to tell him no, nor should they have. The end result, a version of “Voodoo Chile” that sounds like the Chemical Brothers before there were Chemical Brothers, stands as the second to last great thing Jesus Jones would do. (Forgive me, but I’m still fond of “The Devil You Know.”) The drum tracks rocked without delving into industrial noise, and the guitar squeals have an otherworldly sound that would have brought a smile to Jimi’s face. And let’s not forget what a unique vocalist Edwards was for the time. That raspy tenor of his was unmistakable.
Wow, I can’t believe I just dedicated two paragraphs to Jesus Jones. Let’s move on. (more…)
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I have begun to re-use album covers. Just wanted to put that out there.
Below are magnified fragments of album covers. Most of them are well-known albums, but there are a few obscure covers (or lesser-known albums from well-known artists) mixed in to keep you honest. You must guess both the artist and album cover. In order to keep things simple, live albums, soundtracks and singles compilations will not be used, and with all apologies to our European and Japanese friends, we are going with the covers that appeared in the US record stores…back when we had record stores. Sigh.
The rules are the same as Name That Tune. Each player can make three guesses between updates (“Update” is defined as “The time when I post a comment listing all of the covers that have been guessed correctly,” “Guess” is defined as “any attempt to identify a single cover”), so everyone will have a chance to contribute. And, just to spice things up, we have a puzzle cover this week, yay! One guess per player of the puzzle between updates, please.
There is a (very obvious) acrostic this week. The FIRST letter in the name of the artist or band will provide a clue as to the puzzle cover’s identity. Good luck!
A girl on whom I held a massive crush in high school gave me one of her senior year photos, and on the back she wrote, “I will never hear Simple Minds without thinking of you.” And even then I thought, “Um, thanks?” Which is no disrespect to one of Scotland’s finest, but rather that if you remove the upper case in that band name, it goes from compliment to slam in a nanosecond. Still, I knew she wasn’t calling me a simple mind; I played the daylights out of those guys for anyone who’d listen, beginning with 1984’s drumtastic Sparkle in the Rain. My rocker friends caught on the following year when the band released their breakthrough hit Once Upon a Time, but by then, I was going back and discovering the New Romantic beauty of New Gold Dream. Today’s WLW will highlight mixes of two songs from these three albums, hopefully without dredging up any painful high school memories in the process. (more…)
MAXIMUM THREE GUESSES between updates of the list, to give everyone a chance to play. An update of the list is when I post the entire list of correct guesses with the words “OFFICIAL UPDATE.” “Guess” is officially defined as “attempting to identify any one song.” Therefore, one comment that lists three songs counts as three guesses.
While I’m not going to be a stickler for spelling and punctuation, you must guess the correct musician and song title to a close approximation.
How the game is played: I have uploaded twenty-five very brief song clips. Please bear in mind that both my record collection and knowledge of music are probably 5% of that of Scraps’, so these quizzes won’t be nearly as comprehensive – or even hit-based – as his were. I will use mostly well-known songs, but I reserve the right to use something obscure if it suits my needs, like it does this week. Live versions and covers are also fair game, though I will stay away from remixes, because that’s just mean.
There is a puzzle this week, and the songs in the game will offer a (painfully obvious) clue as to the puzzle song’s identity.
I suggest subscribing to the comments on the post to more easily follow the progress of the game. Remember — please! — NO MORE THAN THREE GUESSES between updates of the list. Have fun!
As we discussed in the previous PGTW installment, Disc One of Ruby Trax was a rather inauspicious first step for such an ambitious project. They had their pick of the UK’s top acts, and they thought that letting the Fatima Mansions creep their way, both literally and figuratively, through Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It for You)” was not only a good idea, but worthy of the opening disc? Huh.
And in the interest of full disclosure, that would not be the last lapse in judgment they would have. In fact, Disc Two of Ruby Trax, while far more consistent than Disc One, opens with Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine covering… “Another Brick in the Wall.” (Brought to you by Bad Idea Jeans.) On the surface, you might think that the boys behind “Sheriff Fatman” might be able to inject a little fun into Pink Floyd’s dark disco juggernaut, but no. Instead, they slow it down to a snail’s pace, and for no reason whatsoever, they shout “Motherfucker!” after the second chorus. Next.
The next two songs have been the subject of much discussion and debate, even between the bands themselves. Blur tackles “Maggie May” minus bassist Alex James (he was vehemently opposed to covering Rod the Mod and refused to play on the song), and how much you like this cover depends greatly on your reverence for the original. Personally, I like “Maggie May” but heard it more than enough growing up, so I’ll take Blur’s cover gladly, though it sounds like they recorded it in about 20 minutes. Then comes Tears for Fears’ note-for-note cover of David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes,” and once again I will admit my bias. One of my favorite Bowie songs being covered by one of my favorite singers, ever. I couldn’t care less that it’s identical to the original, since it’s a pretty hard song to “make your own,” as it were. Apparently Roland Orzabal had tried doing something left-field with it, but it wasn’t working, so they went the Gus Van Zant “Psycho” route instead. Orzabal acknowledged that the band more or less took the easy way out with the Bowie cover when compiling B-sides for the band’s Saturnine Martial & Lunatic album, but then said, “Still, it’s better than Blur’s version of ‘Maggie May.’ (Or is it?)” Yes, Roland, it’s better. But I like your version too, Damon. I’m such a kiss-ass. (more…)
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I have begun to re-use album covers. Just wanted to put that out there.
Below are magnified fragments of album covers. Most of them are well-known albums, but there are a few obscure covers (or lesser-known albums from well-known artists) mixed in to keep you honest. You must guess both the artist and album cover. In order to keep things simple, live albums, soundtracks and singles compilations will not be used, and with all apologies to our European and Japanese friends, we are going with the covers that appeared in the US record stores…back when we had record stores. Sigh.
The rules are the same as Name That Tune. Each player can make three guesses between updates (“Update” is defined as “The time when I post a comment listing all of the covers that have been guessed correctly,” “Guess” is defined as “any attempt to identify a single cover”), so everyone will have a chance to contribute. And, just to spice things up, we have a puzzle cover this week, yay! One guess per player of the puzzle between updates, please.
There is no acrostic this week, but there is definitely a theme. Good luck!
From a personal standpoint, the summer of 1986 was, well, awful. I just graduated from high school, and had absolutely no idea what I was going to do from there. (Man, were we lucky in that regard; the kids today do not have that option.) My musical life was undergoing a similar transformation. I had always been a pop boy who dabbled in off-the-radar bands — which, in the early ’80s, meant Simple Minds and Icehouse — but after two seminal modern rock albums and a game-changing soundtrack appeared in the spring (Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration, the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead, and the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink, for those keeping score at home), I could tell that a change was a-coming.
But a leopard doesn’t change his spots; while I was eagerly devouring this strange new music coming out of the UK, I was also still buying albums like Glass Tiger’s The Thin Red Line. Hey, like I said, I’m a pop boy, and today’s six-pack is a somewhat fond look back at when Pop Boy met Alterna-Boy.
Pet Shop Boys – Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)
Never mind being one of the greatest singles acts of all time – the Pet Shop Boys are one of the best BANDS of all time. This single marks the first of many PSB songs to be mixed by the once-ubiquitous Shep Pettibone, and he’s not subtle about his intentions, taking the original version’s syncopated, slightly industrial drum track and replacing it with a fat-ass kick and snare, with an actual bass guitar playing the bass line. True story: I used the contact information on the back of this 12″ single to try and score an interview with Shep for a college paper. His manager told me Shep was too busy…but would I be interested in talking with Junior Vasquez? Yes. Yes, I would. (more…)
God doesn’t get a whole lot of face time here on Popdose – and truth be told, I’m as guilty of that as everyone else – and technically, this song is no exception. The artist who wrote it, though, Derek Webb, is somewhat of a giant within the Christian pop community. Or, at least that is my perception of him, since I don’t really have an insider’s perspective of the scene. I can see where he might be viewed as a (*adopts Tina Fey twang*) maverick for making pop records that focus on social injustice and loving thy brother rather than the tried and true method of treacly arrangements, melba toast instrumentation, and a heaping dose of “Jesus.” Webb’s 2007 album, The Ringing Bell, is a pop gem in the vein of Matthew Sweet and Neil Finn, and his 2008 EP with wife Sandra McCracken has the best song Sheryl Crow never wrote (”When the Summer’s Gone”). Dude’s got skills.
In late 1992, the idea of Jesus Jones covering Jimi Hendrix was viewed one of two ways: it was either the most awesome idea ever, or grounds for justifiable homicide. (Bear in mind, this came a full year before the Hendrix tribute album Stone Free, where everyone from the Cure to PM Dawn took Jimi’s songs for a ride.) He’s the greatest guitarist of all time, and they…play keyboards! (*Shake fists at God*) As Popdose resident remix geek, I’m guessing you already know which side of this debate I’m on.
