Pulling the Wig Down from the Shelf
Sep. 9th, 2005 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2I've listened to the soundtrack to Hedwig and the Angry Inch several times this week. Sometimes it takes me a while to really get into something... when I saw the movie at Gene's place, I wasn't sure what to think of it, whether I really liked it or not. Later I ordered both the movie soundtrack and a cd of bands doing covers of the soundtrack, but then I didn't listen to either for a long time after getting them (I listened to each once, I think, then no more until this last week).
Anyway, the more I listen to it the more I like it. The covers cd is fun too, except that the songs that I often gravitate to first are the straight-ahead hard rockers, and for some reason those are the kind of songs that when another band decides to cover them, they think they have to do something different, to make it "better" or more complicated by not covering it as a straight-ahead rock song, but, say, making it into an electronic dance number, or a moody piano piece, or whatever. Rarely does this work -- Tori Amos covering Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of the few exceptions. Usually you get something like The Cure's cover of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze -- taking a great rock song with amazing guitar riffs and turning it into something much, much less. Because they're The Cure, it still manages to sound interesting, but it's clearly not half as good a song as the original.
And so... several of the hard rocker songs from Hedwig get destroyed on the covers cd. Freaks gets turned into some weird electronica thing by a band called Imperial Teen. A band called Spoon deconstructs Tear Me Down to the point where it lacks most of the punch the original had. Even Bob Mould turns Nailed into some sort of fast-paced weird electronica thing, and that's the strangest one of all because Bob Mould IS the guitarist doing most of the cool riffs on the movie soundtrack. Maybe he felt that he had to do something completely different for the covers cd. Anyway, his version isn't as bad as the others, it's quite interesting, but why can't anyone just take a simple rock tune and rock out with it? It's like these so-called rock musicians don't actually remember what rock 'n Roll is actually about.
One group hasn't forgotten. Sleater-Kinney turns in a brilliant, searing version of Angry Inch, with Fred Schneider (of the B-52's) providing the monologue in the middle, which works very well. Sleater-Kinney is, after all, a punk rock group that knows something about straight-ahead rockers, as a listen to their "It's Enough" or "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" will attest. But then we have The Breeders, another band that knows how to rock hard, doing a really boring cover of Wicked Town. Blah.
Other highlights on the cd include an originial song inspired by the movie, Robyn Hitchcock's "City of Women", and some other songs written by Stephen Trask that aren't on the movie soundtrack, in particular "Milford Lake", which gets a performance by Stephen Trask himself and John Cameron Mitchell, the original Hedwig himself. Cyndi Lauper & The Minus Five do a very nice cover of Midnight Radio, and when she gets to the part about strange women rockers.... "Tina, Yoko, Aretha... and me" it works well because Cyndi certainly belongs on that list... and also because Yoko Ono herself is on this cd, doing a good cover of Hedwig's Lament/Exquisite Corpse. Frank Black does Sugar Daddy, They Might Be Giants cover The Long Grift... most of the cd is quite good.
I was sort of inspired to do a "sleazy rock 'n roll" cd. I tried this before, around the time I picked up The Makers and The Toilet Boys, both of whom qualify. I went back and got a New York Dolls greatest hits, and I think I included the Rolling Stones (of course) and I don't remember what else... but for the kind of music I'm thinking, raunchy primal rock and roll / punk, you'd probably want some Aerosmith (Walk this way or Dude Looks Like A Lady), maybe Black Crowes, maybe some Motley Crue and/or Guns and Roses, and then probably David Bowie, maybe Velvet Underground or Lou Reed anyway, Billy Idol I'd think, possibly Iggy Pop or The Stooges, and to round it out some stuff that doesn't fit quite as well but fairly close... The Sonics, The Who, Lynnrd Skynnrd, Ramones, I don't know. New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip, just because that song's been in my head since Katrina struck. And maybe I'd want something like Call Me by Blondie, or Sex (I'm A) by Berlin, or Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode... songs that don't fit the kind of rock and roll I'm looking for, but are sleazy anyway. ^_^
There was a lot of stuff I came up with that I didn't own yet... so last night I ordered quite a few used cds from Amazon. I owned no Aerosmith, no David Bowie, no Stooges, no Velvet Underground, no Billy Idol even. All of that's been taken care of now. ^_^ Plus I ordered the stage cast recording version of Hedwig. Woo!
And then I played more Second Life. Woo!
Anyway, the more I listen to it the more I like it. The covers cd is fun too, except that the songs that I often gravitate to first are the straight-ahead hard rockers, and for some reason those are the kind of songs that when another band decides to cover them, they think they have to do something different, to make it "better" or more complicated by not covering it as a straight-ahead rock song, but, say, making it into an electronic dance number, or a moody piano piece, or whatever. Rarely does this work -- Tori Amos covering Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit is one of the few exceptions. Usually you get something like The Cure's cover of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze -- taking a great rock song with amazing guitar riffs and turning it into something much, much less. Because they're The Cure, it still manages to sound interesting, but it's clearly not half as good a song as the original.
And so... several of the hard rocker songs from Hedwig get destroyed on the covers cd. Freaks gets turned into some weird electronica thing by a band called Imperial Teen. A band called Spoon deconstructs Tear Me Down to the point where it lacks most of the punch the original had. Even Bob Mould turns Nailed into some sort of fast-paced weird electronica thing, and that's the strangest one of all because Bob Mould IS the guitarist doing most of the cool riffs on the movie soundtrack. Maybe he felt that he had to do something completely different for the covers cd. Anyway, his version isn't as bad as the others, it's quite interesting, but why can't anyone just take a simple rock tune and rock out with it? It's like these so-called rock musicians don't actually remember what rock 'n Roll is actually about.
One group hasn't forgotten. Sleater-Kinney turns in a brilliant, searing version of Angry Inch, with Fred Schneider (of the B-52's) providing the monologue in the middle, which works very well. Sleater-Kinney is, after all, a punk rock group that knows something about straight-ahead rockers, as a listen to their "It's Enough" or "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" will attest. But then we have The Breeders, another band that knows how to rock hard, doing a really boring cover of Wicked Town. Blah.
Other highlights on the cd include an originial song inspired by the movie, Robyn Hitchcock's "City of Women", and some other songs written by Stephen Trask that aren't on the movie soundtrack, in particular "Milford Lake", which gets a performance by Stephen Trask himself and John Cameron Mitchell, the original Hedwig himself. Cyndi Lauper & The Minus Five do a very nice cover of Midnight Radio, and when she gets to the part about strange women rockers.... "Tina, Yoko, Aretha... and me" it works well because Cyndi certainly belongs on that list... and also because Yoko Ono herself is on this cd, doing a good cover of Hedwig's Lament/Exquisite Corpse. Frank Black does Sugar Daddy, They Might Be Giants cover The Long Grift... most of the cd is quite good.
I was sort of inspired to do a "sleazy rock 'n roll" cd. I tried this before, around the time I picked up The Makers and The Toilet Boys, both of whom qualify. I went back and got a New York Dolls greatest hits, and I think I included the Rolling Stones (of course) and I don't remember what else... but for the kind of music I'm thinking, raunchy primal rock and roll / punk, you'd probably want some Aerosmith (Walk this way or Dude Looks Like A Lady), maybe Black Crowes, maybe some Motley Crue and/or Guns and Roses, and then probably David Bowie, maybe Velvet Underground or Lou Reed anyway, Billy Idol I'd think, possibly Iggy Pop or The Stooges, and to round it out some stuff that doesn't fit quite as well but fairly close... The Sonics, The Who, Lynnrd Skynnrd, Ramones, I don't know. New Orleans is Sinking by The Tragically Hip, just because that song's been in my head since Katrina struck. And maybe I'd want something like Call Me by Blondie, or Sex (I'm A) by Berlin, or Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode... songs that don't fit the kind of rock and roll I'm looking for, but are sleazy anyway. ^_^
There was a lot of stuff I came up with that I didn't own yet... so last night I ordered quite a few used cds from Amazon. I owned no Aerosmith, no David Bowie, no Stooges, no Velvet Underground, no Billy Idol even. All of that's been taken care of now. ^_^ Plus I ordered the stage cast recording version of Hedwig. Woo!
And then I played more Second Life. Woo!
