Thursday, December 22, 2005

I keep my distance, but you still catch my eye.

O. M. G.

 

You people are total freaks! For every person that mocked the bulk of the "Last Christmas" covers I put up the other day, there were 10 others clamoring for more. I kept getting "do you have the such-and-such version???" e-mails. Well, here's another Whamful installment. Again, there are still more in my collection, but I really doubt I'll be hunting them out between now and the holiday, so get these while the getting's good. Let's all cross our fingers that my bandwidth holds up.

The Revolvers' track is my favorite here, despite the fact that I usually hate "punk" covers.

Wham's "Last Christmas" as covered by:
  • Airpanel feat. Karyn White Techno/Trance
  • Alexia "Oi Kambanes Htypoun (Greek)" Pop
  • Beatmas/Rubber Band Beatles
  • Busted Whiny Pop-Punk
  • Collage Freestyle
  • DJ Glowy and Snoopie Breakbeat
  • Fonda Indie Dream Pop
  • Julsanger Techno/Trance/Hi-NRG
  • KE4 "Last Christmas I Gave You Acid" Chilled-Out Electronic Mash-Up
  • Keisha Chante Urban R&B
  • Yuji Oda feat. Butch Walker J-Pop/Rock
  • Pas/Cal Indie Chamber Pop
  • Rap All-Stars Rap
  • Revolvers Powerpop-punk
  • Sarge Indie
  • Soulwax Alternative?
  • Yoko Watanabe J- Pop (from an opera singer, I believe)
  • Zecchino D'Oro "Questo Natale (Italian)" Kidz Bop d'Italia
  • Wednesday, December 21, 2005

    But it's not like Christmas at all.

    Aaahhhhh, freestyle*. How innocuous and fun you could be. Sometimes.

  • Brenda K Starr "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" (Darlene Love/Phil Spector cover)

  • Sammy C "Little Drummer Boy" (comp. Katherine Davis/Henry Onorati/Harry Simeone)

  • Denine "Jingle Bell Rock" (comp. Joe Beal/Jim Boothe)

  • Miguel Reyes "Silent Night"

    *NOT RAP!
  • Tuesday, December 20, 2005

    Come and behold.

  • Halfby "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
  • Tatsuki Hashimoto "Jingle Bells"
  • Toshi Akigoto "The Christmas Song"
    These three tracks are from a 2003 Japanese bossanova album called Christmas Wonderland, which I surprisingly really like.

  • Hybrid Kids (Morgan Fisher) "O, Come All Ye Faithful"
    I know I just posted a Hybrid Kids track a few entries back, but I find myself trapped like a deer in headlights when I hear Morgan Fisher's covers. This one sounds like the soundtrack to a nightmare in which I'm trapped in a mechanical Christmas funhouse running away from an army of demonic robotic elves. Demonic robotic elves singing about adoring the Christ child, that is, which is even more frightening.

  • The SmashUp "Coventry Carol"
    This just plain cracks me up, and the sad thing is that I can't tell whether my joy is ironic or not.

    "Dude, are you being sarcastic?"
    "I don't even know anymore."

  • Banaroo "Bling Bling Here, Bling Bling There (Jingle Bells)"
    Oh my. Um. Yeah. Let's make a New Year's Resolution today: No more Aquaesque/Vengaboysian German teen pop acts. "Bling bling in the air," indeed.
  • Monday, December 19, 2005

    Careful what you wish for!

    So, a few people have e-mailed or commented that they want Christmas covers. Admittedly, I was quite gung-ho about Christmas covers last December. This year, I just haven't been feeling the same holiday energy. (Seasonal Affective Disorder, anyone?) But far be it for me to deny the masses what they crave. Of course, asking me for ANY covers will run you the risk that I you will hate most of what I post, but you knew that already, I hope.



    Wham's "Last Christmas" as covered by:
  • Asmodi Bizarr
  • Atomic Kitten
  • Crazy Frog
    There are things even I can't believe have gained popularity anywhere ever, and Crazy Frog is certainly one of them.
  • Dexter Freebish
  • Erlend Oye
    The best of the lot, by far.
  • Hawk Nelson
  • Hilary Duff
  • Human Nature
  • Jamelia
  • Noorkuu
  • Physical Motion
  • Raphael "La Ultima Navidad" (That means it's in Spanish!)
  • Rod Dodd and V/Vm
  • Roses are Red
  • Vasco and Millboy feat. Thomas B.

    Note: This is representative of only about a quarter of the "Last Christmas" covers I have.
  • Wednesday, December 14, 2005

    Secret, secret, I've got a secret.

    Hey, kids. Just a heads-up that The Monolators have a cover of Eartha Kitt's "Cha Cha Heels" on their main page and a slew of other bizarre covers on their Audio page. Check it out, yo.

    Tuesday, December 13, 2005

    Unlike the others, I'll do anything. I'm not afraid. I have no shame.

    Themes are cool and all, but I must admit today's selection brought to you by my shuffle play.

  • Wisecracker "When the Rain Begins to Fall" (Jermaine Jackson & Pia Zadora cover)
    There are some covers that don't even have to come close to being good for me to love them. Usually these are covers of songs that are my longtime guiltiest pleasures and I get so excited that ANYONE has covered them that I blind myself into actually loving the cover versions. And, with that said, please allow me to introduce you to this completely awesome German ska cover of this, um, classic by a band who describes their sound as "Madness meets Iron Maiden." Uh, yeah.

  • The Meat Purveyors "The Madonna Trilogy (Like a Virgin/Lucky Star/Burning Up)" (Madonna covers)
    Nothing wrong with a little toe-tapping alt.country Madge style, says I.

  • Halifax "Straight Up" (Paula Abdul cover)
    There's no good defense for someone my age actually watching the horror that was The Real World: Austin, but I did. Ugh. Worst season ever. But it did warm my heart to see holier-than-thou Lacey badmouth Halifax only to wind up wearing a Halifax hoodie a few episodes later. Nothing quite like an indie elitist coming to terms with the fact that it's easier to accept emo punk than fight it. 'Cause nothing's sadder than wasting your time beleaguering the necessity for emo punk when you could be badmouthing your drunken whore roommates.

    If you like this track, there's a surprisingly Hot Topic-esque shirt over at Threadless this week you should get to warn everyone how angry-yet-sensitive you are. Click pic below to check it out:

    Threadless.com Product - Emo Bear

    Blah, blah, blah, I think teenagers who think they're "punk" are lame. Blah, blah, blah, emo sucks. Blah, blah, blah, I'm going to go buy a Gang of Four record and prove how cool I am. Whatever. Boys wearing eyeliner are sexy and this song holds a special place in my heart because the first time I ever got totally plastered, this song was popular and my best friend Julie tried to make me sing it the entire ride home in the hopes that it would make me sober up. It was an admirable goal, really, but one that failed miserably.

  • Dick Rivers "Ces Mots Qu'On Oublie Un Jour (The Things We Said Today)" (Beatles cover in French)
    Kind of sounds like a French Elvis album playing at the wrong speed. Also reminds me of Edwyn Collins "A Girl Like You," again at the wrong speed.

  • Grope "Army of Me" (Bjork cover)
    something tells me that this is less a cover of Bjork and more a cover of Helmet covering Bjork, which is one of my least favorite types of covers ever.
  • Tuesday, December 06, 2005

    Put him in the scuppers with a hosepipe on him.

    I started commenting on these tracks last night and thought I might get a chance to finish today, but it's been so long since I posted that I thought I should just go ahead and leave some with paltry information and insights. Basically, these are a handful of experimental/electronic tracks—some more avant-garde than others, some simply electroclash, some just using one or two effects here and there. All potentially insane.

    [The Threadless sale ends Thursday, just so you know. They just printed a few new shirts in addition to reprinting a few, one of which I'd peen pining for for ages! Yay!]


  • Fifty Foot Hose "God Bless the Child" (Billie Holiday cover)
    This band from the psych era would actually pretty mainstream and jazz-folky if it weren't for the bizarre electronic noises they chose to throw in over the vocals. Ah, the experimentation of the '60s!

  • Claude Denjean & the Moog Synthesizer "Big Yellow Taxi" (Joni Mitchell cover)
    Wow. It was definitely difficult to narrow it down to one track by this Moog pioneer, but this track definitely makes me the happiest. In fact, I played this for my friends Ray and Eric a week or so ago and we giggled throughout the whole thing. Reminds me of a Casio demo track. Or the soundtrack to my nightmares involving clowns. "Oooooh ... chop, chop, chop!"

  • Elektric Music "Baby Come Back" (The Equals cover)
    Hmm. So this guy once played with Kraftwerk and Electronic, huh? I'd expect this to be far more palatable than it is. Still, it's nice to be reminded of pre-"Electric Avenue" Eddy Grant.

  • Cylob "Drunken Sailor" (Traditional)
    Um. Okay.

  • Fragments "Nutbush City Limits" (Ike & Tina Turner cover)
    I can't find out anything about Fragments except they had a few 7-inches in 1980. Anyone know anything else?

  • The Droyds "Take Me I'm Yours" (Squeeze cover)
  • The Droyds "Take Me I'm Yours (Simian Mobile Disco Remix)" (Squeeze cover)
    I think I like the remix better, if for no other reason than the "I come across my camel" line makes me giggle.

  • Hybrid Kids (Morgan Fisher) "You've Lost that Loving Feeling" (Righteous Brothers cover)
    If I saw this at an open-mic poetry night, I'd be intrigued. For a minute. Then annoyed. Not unlike Blixa Bargeld reading hardware catalogs.

  • Brad Walsh feat. Kathy C. "100 Percent Pure Love" (Crystal Waters cover)
    I heart Brad Walsh. Visit his music page for some remixes as well as his cover of Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts," which I'm certain I posted or linked to a while back.

  • Ladytron "Oops, Oh My" (Tweet cover)
    I love masturbation jams, so I'm all about this.

  • Attic Plant "Sexx Laws" (Beck cover)
    Again, I don't know anything about Attic Plant, nor can I find any proof that they exist except for the fact that this track somehow wound up in my shuffle play.
  • Thursday, December 01, 2005

    Happy December.

    I've been sick, hence the lack of posts. Perhaps I'll find the energy tonight.

    Until then, David F has a handful of Seu Jorge Bowie covers up.