Over the past few years a variety of songs have been crucified by drippy women with acoustic guitars (or pianos) in adverts. Currently there is a truly shit version of Wonderwall (admittedly shit to begin with) offending my ears. Crazy In Love was murdered in this manner once.
So are there any songs which are “drippy women in advert” proof? Can you imagine “Born Slippy Nuxx” but sung by a bloodless woman with an acoustic guitar? Perhaps “Fuck Tha’ Police”? Is the day coming when “Bitches Ain’t Shit” but done on a piano and sung by the lead singer of Pamplemousse will be the soundtrack of a John lewis advert?
Do we face a future of pure drip?
It’s not even just ones sung by young women. That awful cover of Real Love in last year’s John Lewis ad (Tom Odell I think) was truly, terribly drippy.
Drippy is definitely Ed Sheeran’s middle name, but he’s not a cover guy. Drippy seems to be the go to emotion just now.
I am not happy about this. I thought my contempt for the young as an old man would be caused by the brilliant drugs and amazing sex they all would be having, which I am not. Turns out it’s because they are DRIPS. Go figure.
Whenever I hear modern Christmas records it’s nearly always moany young men who sound suicidally miserable.
Christmas isn’t a time for social realism.
*Voice of Satan* Not my bag, baby. The blood-drenched, soul-shrivelling whelping of hip-hop demon DJ Khaled was the last time I dipped my cloven hoof into matters poptastic.
I think the trend started some years back with Nouvelle Vague, whose USP was unlikely covers – a breathy, vaguely continental female voice delicately intoning something like ‘London’s Calling’ or ‘She’s Lost Control’ with a soupçon of smug deadpan irony. It was hideous then, their bastard offspring are just as bad now.
Their version of Bela Lugosi’s Dead is quite agreeable. It suits a bit of a sultry, female vocal treatment. It builds gradually, leading to the female lead singer writhing around on the stage in the throws of some kind of erotic frenzy. Not that that has anything to do with the appeal of their version of course. No siree, none at all.
The Drip is very much unisex. As is the Vocal Fry, present and correct on the example given above.
20 years to Life for that in my opinion.
The Vocal Fry? Shoot that poison arrow…
Used to visit a pub that had a tendency to play these drippy acoustic covers in the background – one night they played nothing else. I stopped going in because of this, and the huge increase in beer prices. May pop in again this weekend just to see if things have changed.
It’ll be closed. With a music and pricing policy like that they’ll have done that on purpose. I suspect Mafia involvement. They’ll want that spot for a bookies’.
I think I prefer these versions to Dre’s…
Aghh! Both of those are utterly obnoxious
Well posted, the @KDH , I love covers and a well crafted drippy can be great. Indeed, I will soon share the Cover Me Songs 50 best covers of the year, which will certainly include one or two.
What does The Afterword think of this?
Kathryn Williams – In A Broken Dream
It’s ace, if course. Except along with Cat Power’s lovely Covers record I think it may be responsible for this whole genre.
The same as I feel about this, another pointless cover version.
I’m amazed at her popularity on these pages, as she pushes air over her vocal chords to produce yet another variation on all her other songs*
I say this as someone who has 54 of her songs in my library, that’s four complete albums plus assorted other songs.
* I realise that we all have strange attatchments to artists that others find baffling and I know how this phenomena occurs. If it floats your boat, it floats your boat, end of.
I prefer the video for this one, though
Her covers are a joy and a delight. Her own stuff ain’t too shabby either.
DownUndersters Frente! were there in 1994 with an antipodean entry…
I’m glad someone has mentioned this – it’s incredibly annoying. We had Lilly Allen’s anaemic cover of Keane a few years’ back, and we now have to suffer some chump covering REO Speedwagon on the Waitrose ad.
Here’s the magic recipe for advert success:
Get a weedy-voiced singer
Pick a well-known song to cover
Slow the song right down
Remove the melody
Add slight cockney inflection to suggest earthy realism
Piss off entire TV-watching nation
Not been used in an advert to the best of my knowledge, but this from Vladimir Putin’s favourite teenage mock-lesbian duo annoys the hell out if me.
This one was used by John Lewis for their 2018 Xmas ” Elton’s first piano” campaign. Just in case you’ve forgotten it, it’s bloody horrible.
Further to the OP, Renault seem to have a history of selecting this sort of kack for their TV adverts. This mauling of The Jam is by the suitably named Whinnie Williams.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZida6hy_f8
You can understand Renault’s ads becoming mawkish after Papa and Nicole were killed in a fireball, having been driven off the road by an insane Audi driver trying to get to the piste before the Germans..
Is it a new phenomenon though? The cover below popped up on a 1988 TOTP I watched the other day, and it’s as limp and uninspiring as any of the stuff JL use on their Christmas adverts. Bomb the Bass have done some absolute bangers as well, which made it even more confusing.
It’s gettin’ like a freakin’ Bomb The Bass fan site around here!
I always thought it was only a matter of tim(e Simenomenomenom).
Didn’t this sort of thing start with Cowboy Junkies and their version of VU songs etc?
The answer to that would be no, as the Cowboy Junkies are seriously bloody good.
.
There’s nothing drippy about JT. Hard as nails.
This is a fact.
Re the OP. Time to post this again, I think. (NSFW obviously). Eleven years ago…
This was parodied rather well on Atlanta-
I don’t know if any of you are familiar with Sinclair’s Oyster Bar in Manchester, but every summer there’s a busker bloke outside who specialises in these slowed-down covers. He manages to make Ace of Spades and Your Song sound exactly the same.
It’s infected open-mic nights, too. There was a Manchester one I used to enjoy, until everyone started to play slow versions of popular songs. A young lady companion of mine summed it up well when she said – rather too loudly – ‘”Jesus, will you pick up the fecking pace!”
On open mic. nights, most of them play the songs slow because they couldn’t play them at the right speed even if they wanted to.