Cover Friday: “Talk About the Passion”

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Surprise Your Pig
Surprise Your Pig

“Talk About the Passion”
by Samson & The Philistines (originally by R.E.M.)
from the album Surprise Your Pig: A Tribute to R.E.M.
1992
Buy the album on Amazon

Continuing with the R.E.M. week, here’s one from a tribute album from way back (pre-Out of Time). I was a big R.E.M. fan for quite a while (I started waning with Automatic for the People), so when this came out I had to have it. As I’ve mentioned before, like with most albums of this sort, the results are very hit or miss, and mostly miss, but I liked a couple of them. The album is comprised of generally obscure bands (at least to me), but I did appreciate that most of the bands gave a unique spin to their versions. I probably still have a copy of the album somewhere, but this song is for some reason the only one currently in my iTunes library. This particular cover isn’t amazing, but it does become interesting to hear it in a different language (errr..spanish?). It certainly doesn’t trump the original, but is worth a listen.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “Losing My Religion”

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Out of Time
Out of Time

“Losing My Religion”
by R.E.M.
from the album Out of Time
1991
Buy the album on Amazon

Sure, this was a big hit off of a big album that really brought R.E.M. into the mainstream, but the only really important thing is that this is the song that represents Brenda losing her virginity to Dylan. I’m pretty positive they played parts of this song somewhere around 87 times during that episode of 90210.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “Of a Broken Heart”

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Mary Star of the Sea
Mary Star of the Sea

“Of a Broken Heart”
by Zwan
from the album Mary Star of the Sea
2003
Buy the album on Amazon

Zwan was a shitty band (I feel so much better having typed that).  Mary Star of the Sea served as both the debut release and the final gasp of a band that never should have existed in the first place.  It’s a complete train-wreck.  Although, there is one redeeming factor in this monstrosity and it’s located on track six.

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Cover Friday: “Pictures of Matchstick Men”

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Key Lime Pie
Key Lime Pie

“Pictures of Matchstick Men”
by Camper Van Beethoven (originally by Status Quo)
from the album Key Lime Pie
1989
Buy the album on Amazon

I was totally scratching my bean this week trying to think of a cover song I wanted to blather about for a couple of graphs.  I keep a little notepad of cover songs going so I can write down ideas as they pop into my head or come up on shuffle, but nothing on there was really speaking to me.  So I started looking through recent posts to see if anything would spark a thought.  I saw the post about Cracker’s “Teen Angst” and started wondering if they had done some cover songs as B-Sides or something and then I suddenly remembered this CVB song.  I had always known it was a cover, but I thought it was by Strawberry Alarm Clock, however  I was nowhere near being correct.  But before we get to the original, let’s take a few minutes to watch the amazing, obviously late-80s music video for CVB’s version.  It’s about 120 Minutes-worthy as you can get.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “Only”

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With Teeth
With Teeth

“Only”
by Nine Inch Nails
from the album With Teeth
2005
Buy the album on Amazon

Totally ripping of Lance today, since I thought I should as soon as he posted this and since he actually called out this song pick in his post (even if he did also bad mouth Pinkerton). I’ve only actually done this song once or twice, and I remember it made me happy that Lance thought it was a great pick (I’m sometimes ok with completely obscure songs that no one else will appreciate as long as he gets it), but I wouldn’t call it a karaoke success.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “The Hand That Feeds”

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With Teeth
With Teeth

“The Hand That Feeds”
by Nine Inch Nails
from the album With Teeth
2005
Buy the album on Amazon

I have weird tastes in albums, particularly from established artists.  Masterpieces that everyone else fawns over, I end up feeling meh about.  My go-to example is Pinkerton.  Sometimes it has to do with which album was my first with that artist.  The Blue Album ruined me for all future entries in their discography.  The same thing happened with The Downward Spiral, while it’s harder and more raw that Pretty Hate Machine (these are good things), I’ll never love it as much.  But sometimes certain albums just speak to you.  With Teeth was the album I needed exactly when I needed it.  And consequently, it’s my favorite Nine Inch Nails album.  That’s heresy for most NIN fans, but these lyrics, the raw sound of the production (after the super-indulgent Fragile) and the big-ass beats courtesy of the heaviest right foot in rock, Dave Grohl, delivered exactly what I wanted.

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Cover Friday: “Thunderstruck”

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Thunderstruck
Thunderstruck

“Thunderstruck”
by Ministry, 2Cellos, Steve’n’Seagulls,  (originally by AC/DC)
from all over the goddamned place
Buy the original album on Amazon

I was thinking about picking an AC/DC tune for a #karaoketuesday post, but I’m sober enough right now to realize I could never pull off an AC/DC tune unless it was a swing number or something.  Which got me thinking about covers that are done in a different genre than the original version.  So, ladies and gentlemen, I present “Thunderstruck” as performed by three, radically different groups.  But first, let’s take a listen to the original and still bad-ass AC/DC original.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “Teen Angst”

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Cracker
Cracker

“Teen Angst (What The World Needs Now)”
by Cracker
from the album Cracker
1992
Buy the album on Amazon

Lately I’ve been posting a lot about songs that I desperately want to perform at karaoke but couldn’t because the man didn’t deem them worthy of inclusion.  However, this entry falls more in line with the thought, “Wow, this would be a great song to sing at karaoke.”

I remember generally dismissing Cracker for years based on the video for this song, which has the guys in a field prancing around like dandy rednecks, with dirt bikes and half-collapsed barns littering the background.   When you’re trying to escape your shitty hometown you don’t want to be reminded of the situation everytime you turn on MTV.

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Karaoke Tuesday: “Everything Zen”

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Sixteen Stone
Sixteen Stone

“Everything Zen”
by Bush
from the album Sixteen Stone
1994
Buy the album on Amazon

I posted another Bush karaoke song (“Glycerine“) almost 3 months ago to the day from today. How the hell have we been doing this blog for 3+ months? I won’t rehash my thoughts on Bush, other than to say that if I remember right this was their first single, and what got me into them.

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Cover Friday: “Get It On (Bang a Gong)”

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The Power Station
The Power Station

“Get It On (Bang a Gong)”
by The Power Station (originally by T. Rex)
from the album The Power Station
1985
Buy the album on Amazon

I love this cover.  The T. Rex original is a classic but this is the version I keep returning to.  The combo of that crazy hi-hat, the crunchy guitar and that slap bass is intoxicating.  On top of it all you’ve got Robert Palmer working his slick, sexy cool swagger through those lyrics.  What the fuck do they even mean?

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