Friday, June 18, 2010

Covers

The Onion's A.V. Club got a bunch of bands to cover songs from the '60s through the '90s (via). A lot of them are from the '80s. Some of the covers haven't been posted yet, but the song titles have been announced. (I'm looking forward to seeing what's done with Nirvana's "Sliver" and Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy.")

Unfortunately, each one starts with a minute or more of ads for beer and coffee. Also, the announcer has an oddly unenthusiastic delivery that seems to be popular on the web. For some reason, people announcing things on TV go completely over the top, but this would seem inappropriate on a website. Does sitting closer to a screen somehow make an audience more conscious of people overexerting their voices?

Anyway, as far as the music, here's a good one (although you might want to mute the volume on your computer till the band starts): Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, covering . . .




. . . Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

2 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

Great idea, but these guys just completely copied the song, didn't they.

Laughed at the joke about being 30 years old.

John Althouse Cohen said...

I like straightforward covers. I don't like listening to a band struggling to "interpret" every single line of a song. I just end up thinking, "Uh, you've got the lyrics right, but what happened to the melody??"