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Unexpected covers

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Went expecting this but I have to say I love it:

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  1. O ferchrissake don’t let Disappointing Bob see this, as I usually say something around Abba being tinny bing bang bong bubblegum candy floss but that their songs, as covered by others, as does this, polish up quite well………

  3. That’s a great OP. I agree with retro on Abba songs.

    Here’s Roxanne De Bastion singing Dead End Street. It’s completely stripped down, confirming the song’s strength but she really lives the lyric. This kind of thing is often advert fodder but she only sugars the song’s topic with the natural beauty of her voice.

  10. Maybe not unexpected given the ‘Nnon’s eclectic tastes and the presence of a string quartet on the original… but you’d hardly call Mark Gardiner a crooner. I think this works brilliantly.

  11. Given how deeply unfashionable the Fabs were in 1987, it was very surprising to see the NME set up the Sgt Pepper Knew My Father project. A right mixed bag of nuts it is too… commencing as it does with the very very briefly fashionable South London hip-hoppers Three Wize Men doing the title track and featuring along the way Billy Bragg, Wet Wet Wet and (less surprisingly) The Christians and Frank Sidebottom.*

    As on the original album, the best is saved to last. As featured in mini’s Car Boot podcast a while back…. and very timely this week. MES likes the Beatles! Who knew?

    (*sadly on different tracks)

    • I remember the occasion well. The NME album was a weird anti-climax. The ITV documentary ‘It was Twenty Years Ago Today’, broadcast on the twentieth anniversary of the album’s release was good though, with lots of Derek Taylor. It was on the night before one of my finals, so there was much soul searching over whether I should watch it.

      I want to say something nice about that track. I really do. But I can’t. I thought it was hideous. In fact MES’s vocal reminded me of something I hoped I had completely forgotten about. But I hadn’t.

  12. When I was mainlining 33-45-78 and Supernatural at the turn of the 90s I think the idea of the Stereo MCs covering the Fabs would have made me have an accident in my voluminous Joe Bloggs jeans.

    In the event, when it happened many years later, it was rather an anticlimax (so to speak) but it’s still worth a listen.

    • Bloody hell… me mentioning that I once wore Joe Bloggs has caused the company to instantaneously implode… in its first appearance in the public prints since about 1992!

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42857151

      Wow, I should try more of this “completely destroying something by associating it with me in a King Midas In Reverse stylee”

      It’s a shame we don’t see so much of Rowland Rivron these days.

      I’ve always been a huge fan of Donald Trump.

      I think John Humphrys should be paid way more and NEVER retire.

      • I remember you going on about how much you enjoyed reading The Word. Course we didn’t make the connection back then. Could you do me a personal favour, when you get a bit of free time, and sing the praises of football, mosquitoes, Kay Burley, cold weather, CD packaging, olives, Michael Bay style films, snoring, Jehovas Witnesses calling round, Luigi who works in reception, the meat industry, plastic, sunburn, manky pillows, the tabloid press, coffee flavoured anything and TV licence fees. Ta.

  14. I was certainly surprised at John McLaughlin (with Carlos Santana) covering Bob’s ‘A Hard Rain…’ and LZ’s ‘Stairway…’ in this one-off Montreux concert/repertoire, released on DVD.

    Bob song appears at 0:52, LZ at 2:45:

  19. I am certain you all remember Tennessee Ernie Fords 1955 hit, the splendid 16 Tons, about the hardships of life as a Kentucky coalminer. Here’s a splendid Brazilian cover by Noriel Vilela.

  21. Here’s First Aid Kit doing a rather unlikely cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”
    Kaisfatdad once bumped into Klara Söderberg at Slussen Stockholm in Stockholm. No – honestly. He did.

  38. For many years, Route 66 was the only cover version Depeche Mode performed – apart from “I Like It!” by Gerry and the Pacemakers in the early days.

    Anyway, this led me to yet another very well done “fan” video. Some of them have more views than the official videos. I hadn’t seen this one before and it’s becoming a really interesting aspect of following yer Mode. There’s probably hundreds of them.

    It seems to me that film students worldwide (if they are still called that) as part of their studies, might use a Depeche Mode song, borrow some of Anton Corbijn’s “moves” and submit that. So they get to the music via Corbijn.

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