Album:Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love
Can you imagine a halfway point between the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream? If so, you have a good musical imagination: well done! Also, you may have imagined something close to Jonny Polonsky’s Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love. I mean the guitar tones (weighted a bit towards the Pumpkins’ thick-textured grandiosity, especially the fierce solos), the song structures (leaning nearer the Beatles’ compactness), the melodies (pretty equal). To some extent I mean Polonsky’s singing versus Lennon’s and Corgan’s, though he’s throatier than either, and only on See Your Lies does he master Corgan’s piercing whine. Perhaps my “halfway” remark even refers to quality, though that’s endlessly subjective: personally I’d rate Siamese Dream as “good”, Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love as “very good”, and Rubber Soul as “very, very good”. Also, here’s a more precise comparison for Polonsky’s album that should benefit, if no one else, my mom: imagine Adam Schmitt’s World So Bright, with a heavier emphasis on the rock aspects. You’re welcome.
Some of the rock songs build tension through sparse, tense verses. Bearclaw‘s precise drumming plays hide and seek with a limber bass line, a whistling off-key synth line, and harsh squiggles of distorted guitar. Coming into Slaughter looks in outline like Live’s slow-burning but ultimately loud hits Lightning Crashes or White, Discussion, although Polonsky’s voice is higher, tighter, and more articulate than Ed Kowalczyk’s, and his guitar here takes on the richness (and chorus pedal) of Queen’s Brian May. All the Evil Things is punctuated with a huge, rousing synth/guitar riff, and its chorus (introduced with a firework display of drum fills) is big too, but otherwise it’s sung in a harsh whisper and an even lower harmony vocal over soft tip-tapping.
Then again, See Your Lies is an all-out rant and swaggering rocker Muse would approve of — as might John Lennon have, even if he never had the technology to make his tantrums sound that way. Ugly People Living in the Hole, fast and intense,replaces the swagger with extra drum bursts and sinister cooing. On the quieter end, Something to Believe in is an electrified folk-rock anthem (with a big flock of electric birds joining for the final minute), and Be My Brain has the hazy, punch-drunk country inflections of Mazzy Star or Giant Sand.
Album title aside, Jonny Polonsky‘s lyrics are vague but reasonable enough. Our corporations and political leaders teach us to want a world that isn’t what we need; we need to “bridge across the chasms of chaos, death, and fear … to get out of here, to rebuild our stately home, and deliver the promise from the night”. Billy Corgan would just scream “Let me out!”; John Lennon would imagine “the world will live as one”; Polonsky’s a bit more prone to asserting “All the world’s an aardvark/ sifting through the sand/ searching for the lost spark/ inside our pineal glands”. But they’d all agree that “Ugly people have more to prove than the rest of the world”. They’d all be talking about themselves, but they’d all be comfortable including me, and probably you. Polonsky proves himself with guitar solos; fair enough. What do you got?
Jukebox the Ghost are a power-pop band. By this I mean they’re energetic; they sing about normal pop topics (loneliness, awkward crushes, relationships); their male singer sounds young and basically ordinary but carries tunes well; they play guitar and bass and keyboards and drums; they use clean production; and they rise and fall based on the strength of their melodies. They’re “pop” in the sense that this was an excellent way to become popular in the 1960s and ’70s, and many of us (including some like me who weren’t even around for that) still vaguely assume it should be.
Jukebox the Ghost’s Safe Travels, in high-energy mode, reminds me of early Elton John: there’s confident piano, or keyboard sounds that often fit the ’70s, strutting through these songs, and singer Ben Thornewill can pull off a Crocodile Rock-like falsetto. But of course Elton’s records also had all those ballads, even from the start. Safe Travels‘sslow songs feel different from his. Deadand All for Love are dramatic buildups that end up massive, and Devils on Our Side is a mostly understated solo piano performance until the cello arrives, circling around waiting for a tip; if you didn’t like them, it would more likely be that they felt too emo — raw drama arranged and digitized for easy replay — than too schmaltzy. Man in the Moon is mostly voice and sketchy acoustic guitar. The Spiritual, white gospel singing over piano, that could be Elton.
But I’m mostly here for the rock songs. And honestly, Elton John didn’t always write verses this strong, soaring into new keys for the chorus and leaving room for a distinctive, tuneful bridge; sometimes, but not this reliably. Also Jukebox the Ghost have some good lyrics (who knows what Elton’s partner Bernie Taupin was writing about?). At Last — my choice for a single, switching between stylish percussive verses and over-the-top chorus with strings, plus a nifty guitar solo — sets up a romance-to-be. “He was a songwriter writing songs about a girl/ She was a ghostwriter lying to the world/ in deep anticipation of a day that she had written/ and by her own admission, she’d be picked up, kissed, and twirled”. It gets a detailed eager-but-anxious middle, and a happy (nay, jubilant) ending that feels earned. Say When (excellent piano-synthesizer interaction) is a detailed song about hating parties, that doubles as a pick-up line that also deserves to work.
Dead is, one hopes, not autobiographical yet, but it’s vivid: “Maybe it was just the sleeping pills when I went to bed last night/ Maybe I just never made it home; and what if there’s always been/ a tiny, tiny hole inside my heart leaking very very very very slowly? And if you’re dead, how do you know if you are really dead/ or stuck in a dull dream about nothing that never ends?” I admire the modesty of its urgent plea: “We all, at minimum, deserve a unique exit from this world/ So if you’re there, God, see to it”. Until which, the potentially depressing Adulthood — “In my lungs I still feel young, but my body won’t play along … Each one’s waiting for the chance/ to be lifted off the ground, but then/ to discover that we’ll all be dust again” — is sung and played to make “I dare you to survive/ being grown for the rest of your life” sound like an honest challenge worth some energy. Which it is. Especially with some nice peppy music around to perk us up.
It’s Friday and I’ve had a very annoying week. It started with me struggling to fend off the latest virus and continued with freezing weather, technical difficulties, and lots of griping from the peanut gallery. Since it’s Friday and I’m in need of a good laugh, I figure today’s blog post should be about something relatively amusing. And to me, horrible cover versions of famous songs can be very funny. There have been a lot of them over the years. I don’t know what possesses some singers to take on songs that are inappropriate for their singing style. I would expect that during a karaoke show, but not so much by established musicians trying to make a living.
“American Pie”
The first song that immediately comes to mind is “American Pie”, which was written and made famous by Don McLean. It’s a song about the 1959 plane crash that killed Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper (Jiles Perry Richardson). Some people consider this song to be a masterpiece. Apparently, a lot of rock stars admire it, too; for it’s been covered by several. Madonna tried to sing it in 2000 and some people supposedly liked it.
Madonna’s “American Pie”
I don’t really care too much for Madge’s take on Don McLean’s classic song. But at least it’s not as bad as the one done by the Brady Bunch Kids.
The Brady Kids do “American Pie”.
I think this version pretty much hacks “American Pie” into a lot of little messy pieces. They could have used a little more vocal augmentation or something. It’s dreadful. Maybe I should cut them a little slack, though. The Brady kids were, after all, actors. I’m sure 1970s era recording techniques were primitive compared to what we have today.
“Day Tripper” and “Eight Days A Week”
The next song that comes to mind is one originally done by The Beatles. The Beatles are pretty much revered as a band that helped shape rock and roll into what it is today. John, Paul, George, and Ringo will forever be immortalized as rock gods; they wrote and performed some amazing songs. What rock star in their right mind wouldn’t want to emulate them? Even James Taylor, who is one of my FAVORITE performers of all time, took a stab at it with this unfortunate cover of “Day Tripper”.
James Taylor’s “Day Tripper”
Okay, so I can give James a little break for the fact that this particular version of “Day Tripper” was released in 1979, near the height of the disco craze. And I will even admit that there was a time when I actually enjoyed this version. Indeed, even today, it’s sort of a guilty pleasure. It’s got a certain little spunk to it and James Taylor could sing the phone book and I would probably enjoy it. But disco and JT… maybe not the best choice for optimal listening. I like it better when James Taylor sings his own songs.
James Taylor is not the only one to try singing Beatles songs, though. Back in 1989, country singer Lorrie Morgan also gave it the old college try with her version of “Eight Days A Week”.
Lorrie Morgan’s take on “Eight Days A Week”.
This particular countrified version of “Eight Days A Week” is bouncy enough, with fiddles and even a lead guitar solo by Vince Gill. But I think it really pales against the original.
“Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird”
This cover is like a souvenir of all the nightmares I lived in the late 1980s…
Will To Power sing their mashed up medley of songs by Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
In 1988, a band called “Will To Power” covered two monster rock songs, turning them into an insipid, bloodless, ghastly medley unimaginatively called “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird”. This brings back unwelcome memories of high school. Please, make it stop!
“Ring of Fire”
Johnny Cash was no stranger to singing cover songs. In 2003, just months before he died, Cash sang Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” and did a fine job with it. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Olivia Newton-John’s rendition of Cash’s famous hit “Ring Of Fire”, which was written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore.
Olivia Newton-John’s try at “Ring of Fire”
The only reason I know about this version of “Ring of Fire” is because my dad was a big Olivia Newton-John fan in the 1970s and he had Olivia’s 1977 album Making A Good Thing Better on 8-track. I was five years old at the time and thought Olivia was pretty. Now that I’m a lot older, I can’t quite reconcile the high stepping prancing quality of Olivia’s cover of “Ring of Fire” to Johnny Cash’s big hit.
“Have You Never Been Mellow”
Olivia Newton-John got her just desserts for trashing “Ring of Fire” when Party Animals covered her hit song, “Have You Never Been Mellow”.
“Have You Never Been Mellow” techno style
Actually, I’ve heard quite a few techno versions of this song, none of which were particularly good.
“Stairway to Heaven”
“Stairway to Heaven” could probably be crowned Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece. If it’s not their best known song, it’s definitely one of their best loved rock anthems. And it’s so good, it’s even been covered by… Dolly Parton?
Dolly Parton’s rendition of “Stairway to Heaven”
Fair disclosure here. I actually like what Dolly did with this song; she even added some original lyrics and a little bluegrass styled jam at the end. However, as a Led Zeppelin fan, I also recognize that a lot of people probably think this cover is horrible. I don’t think it’s near as horrible as it could have been. At least Dolly didn’t turn it into disco.
“Jolene”
Since Dolly Parton is also quite the songwriter, her songs have also been butchered by other singers. Her song “Jolene” has been redone more times than I can count. I’ve heard it been turned into everything from bluegrass to techno. In 1976, Olivia Newton-John gave it her best shot…
“Jolene” by Olivia Newton-John
This is a live performance, slightly faster than the recorded version. Olivia has vocal chops, but this version has strings (or synthesized strings on this live version) and Olivia introduces it with a fake southern accent. At the end, she looks like she’s in the throes of an orgasm as she shrieks about that hussy, Jolene. It makes me miss Dolly Parton something fierce.
“Candle In The Wind”
I love Kate Bush’s music. I love her idiosyncratic voice, her expressive piano playing, and her exquisite lyrics. But I don’t love what she did to Elton John’s epic hit, “Candle In The Wind”.
Kate Bush sings “Candle In The Wind”… please someone blow it out!
Granted, there is something kind of haunting about Kate’s vocals on this track, but I still miss Elton John’s appreciative vocals. I don’t think she quite captured his admiration for Marilyn Monroe’s star power. Kate Bush sounds very sterile to me, which kind of negates the whole tribute aspect of this song.
I could probably go on writing about horrible cover songs all day, but it looks like it’s fixing to snow and that would just cap off my week. So I leave you with one last horrible cover…
“Paradise City”
Pat Boone must have got quite the hair up his ass back in 1997, when he released an entire album full of of heavy metal cover songs. He had brass balls to cover a Guns N’ Roses song, especially “Paradise City”.
Pat Boone tries “Paradise City”.
I’m not sure if he meant this to be taken seriously or not. Actually, I think a jazzy version of “Paradise City” doesn’t suck as much as it could. Maybe if Michael Buble had tried this, it would have worked better. I wonder if Axl Rose has heard what Pat Boone did with the song he made famous. If he has, I’m sure there were many spicy sentence enhancers used to describe it.
Divine Light and Love. I mean the guitar tones (weighted a bit towards the Pumpkins’ thick-textured grandiosity, especially the fierce solos), the song structures (leaning nearer the Beatles’ compactness), the melodies (pretty equal). To some extent I mean Polonsky’s singing versus Lennon’s and Corgan’s, though he’s throatier than either, and only on See Your Lies does he master Corgan’s piercing whine. Perhaps my “halfway” remark even refers to quality, though that’s endlessly subjective: personally I’d rate Siamese Dream as “good”, Intergalactic Messenger of Divine Light and Love as “very good”, and Rubber Soul as “very, very good”. Also, here’s a more precise comparison for Polonsky’s album that should benefit, if no one else, my mom: imagine Adam Schmitt’s World So Bright, with a heavier emphasis on the rock aspects. You’re welcome.