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Update: Oops, I’ll Post It Again

March 13, 2011 | Comment

Once again, a cover song I’ve covered previously in my Got You Covered series has surfaced in video format on YouTube.1 This one’s a high quality, professionally shot piece of film, too (as opposed to a cell-phone-in-the-audience product,2 like most concert videos on YouTube). Here’s Richard Thompson channeling his inner Britney Spears — or not:


Those craving more can download the MP3 (and check out plenty more of his stuff) at the Richard Thompson store on Amazon, or at eMusic. His home page is called BeesWeb and is located at www.richardthompson-music.com. Like any responsible recording artist today, he also has fan pages on Facebook and MySpace.3


Sowing Some Garfunkel & Oates

February 17, 2011 | Comment

At last, the official music video for my favorite Garfunkel & Oates song has arrived. Don’t watch it at work, unless you have headphones (or unless your work is cool with a steady dose of the word “motherfucker”… there’s no denying it’s a word with great rhythm). So ladies and gents, get your audio settings set for the song that perfectly illustrates why I don’t like dance clubs: “This Party Took a Turn for the Douche.”

They’re an army in the night, like Norman Mailer. Once again, that’s Riki “Garfunkel” Lindhome and Kate “Oates” Micucci, along with special appearances by Sarah Silverman, Tig Notaro and probably some others that I missed. G&O’s new album All Over Your Face is for sale on Amazon, iTunes, and probably lots of other places. Their website, as listed in my blogroll, is garfunkelandoates.com.


Top Ten Videos of 2010: 3. Garfunkel & Oates, “Pregnant Women Are Smug”

January 8, 2011 | 2 comments

G&O_logo

G&O logo

Keen observers will have already spotted that Garfunkel & Oates appeared in the “Laugh It Out” section of the C&B blogroll several weeks ago. Like one of my previous list-ees, original credit for bringing G&O to my attention is due to the WTF with Marc Maron podcast — specifically, a live episode from early 2010 that featured Kate Micucci (a.k.a. “Oates,” the brunette one). Her abundant charm came through in her conversation with Maron, and I found her solo voice-and-ukelele ditties delightful.1 Googling for more, I discovered her having formed a duo with Riki Lindhome (a.k.a. “Garfunkel,” the blonde one) and I was an immediate fan.

G&O make what they call “couch videos” of new songs they write and post them on YouTube. My listing the following video of “Pregnant Women are Smug” at #3 in my 2010 Top Ten is a little bit of a cheat, because their original YouTube video of the song appeared in April of 2009. But in 2010 they made their first national TV appearances — three, in fact, on The Tonight Show — and this is my favorite of them.

UPDATE (3/20/2011): NBC, in their infinite wisdom, has taken down the G&O Tonight Show videos to make way for newer Leno clips. You suck, NBC. To fill the video void, I’m sticking in the original 2009 “couch video” of the song. Thanks to commenter Siobhan for alerting me to the situation.

Read the rest of this entry »


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: “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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