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Damn That Rapture

May 22, 2011 | Comment

Today is the day after the day that was supposed to be The Day. Reviewing the coverage of what didn’t happen, the following things came to mind.

NPR/Associated Press:

The hour of the apocalypse came quietly and went the same way — leaving those who believed that Saturday evening would mark the world’s end confused, or more faithful, or just philosophical.

Some had given away earthly belongings, [and] others drained their savings accounts.

“I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God,” said Keith Bauer — who hopped in his minivan in Maryland and drove his family 3,000 miles to California for the Rapture.

“I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this earth,” said Bauer…

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Got You Covered: “Nobody Does It Better”

October 19, 2010 | Comment

singleAh, the James Bond theme song: a sub-genre unto itself. There are songs, and there are movie songs, and then there are movie theme songs… and only then is there the Bond film song: a sub-sub-sub-genre distinctive for being (like the Bond movies themselves) unabashedly over-the-top. The best Bond songs are broad-stroke, go-for-broke, balls-out records: Shirley Bassey’s clarion “Goldfinger,” Paul McCartney & Wings’s churning “Live and Let Die,” and the subject of this post, “Nobody Does It Better.” Composed by Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, it played under the opening titles of the 1977 Bond adventure The Spy Who Loved Me. Carly Simon’s warm, wide-open performance of the pop ballad caught the fancy of moviegoers1 and radio station directors alike, and the single reached #2 on the U.S. pop charts. Here’s the first minute or so, just for nostalgia’s sake:

Like just about all of the songs in my Got You Covered series, “Nobody Does It Better” has been covered more times than a 90-year-old exhibitionist. Before I highlight my favorite version, I would be remiss if I didn’t address the rendition by Radiohead. A taste: Read the rest of this entry »


Got You Covered: “Helter Skelter”

May 19, 2010 | 1 comment

How ubiquitous are cover versions of Beatles songs? They’re commonplace enough to make me wonder whose songs bands used to cover before the Beatles existed. That’s the price you pay for revolutionizing popular music — every song you ever record is covered by everybody under the sun.

For this “Got You Covered” post series, I’m setting the bar higher for Beatles covers than for those of other artists. I’d include one only if it is in some way surprising and unexpected despite being a Beatles cover.

the-bobsThat’s where The Bobs come in. The group originated in 1981 when a San Francisco singing telegram company went out of business, unemploying Matthew Stull and Gunnar Madsen1. Needing a bass singer, the lone respondent to their classified ad was Richard Greene. At some point the group named themselves The Bobs, the basis of which was the dog show acronym meaning “Best of Breed”; nevertheless, each member took on the middle name “Bob,” apparently just for shits and giggles. The group soon completed itself with the addition of Janie Bob Scott. Read the rest of this entry »


Got You Covered: “You Shook Me All Night Long”

April 2, 2010 | Permalink

ac-dc_then_&_nowWhen I was a clean- cut suburban kid in my late single-digit years, I used to be afraid of AC/DC fans. Nowadays, hearing strains of the landmark Australian hard rockers’ “Highway to Hell” or “Back in Black” makes me nostalgic for a time simple enough for music to actually seem scary. To be fair, though, back in those days AC/DC did cultivate a somewhat malevolent image; these days, I imagine they’re mostly grateful to still get paid big money to travel the world and play to arenas full of screaming fans. In the image at right I attempt to juxtapose their former menace with the relative cuddliness of their current state.

For the uninitiated, here’s a clip of AC/DC’s best-known song:

If the prospect of still touring after 37 years seemed unlikely, the notion that AC/DC’s music would be given a second incarnation by a bluegrass tribute band calling itself Hayseed Dixie must have been even more farfetched. Read the rest of this entry »


Got You Covered: “Oops! …I Did It Again”

March 20, 2010 | Permalink

I know. I thought it too: “Really? That song?” I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who have thought you’d be perfectly content to never hear it again. On the other hand, there may be some who either can’t recall or somehow escaped hearing Britney Spears’ original rendition. So if you’re curious, here’s a taste.

thompson

Photo: Flickr/Bryan Ledgard

But check it out — this synthetic, plasticized swan is improbably re-shaped into an ugly-in-a-good-way duckling by the British folk-rock journeyman Richard Thompson. His vocal approach — aggressive, and more than a little bitter — turns kittenish teen-pop into a sardonic challenge. To cap it off, Thompson bends the song to his will with his virtuosic guitar interludes, at one point even shifting it temporarily into 6/8 time. All in all, it’s been enough to banish the Britney Spears version from my mind’s ear… but I don’t purport to predict its effect on others. Judge for yourselves: Read the rest of this entry »


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