(no subject)

[miko2]

Today's Song: Fox on the Run by Girlschool

So... researching Chinese bands led me to Hang on the Box, which made me look up videos for Shonen Knife and Sleater-Kinney, and that led me back to American girl rockers The Donnas... which led me to British metal band Girlschool. Despite the fact that I have an anime fanfic story called Girls School and I love female-fronted rock, I'd never actually listened much to this band. I downloaded two tracks from iTunes... C'mon Let's Go, one of their signature classic hits, and their cover of Sweet's Fox on the Run, which is a very good cover and is thus my song of the day.

Girlschool - Fox on the Run

Now, this got me to thinking. Sweet was a British bubble gum rock band that approached heavy metal on their album Desolation Boulevard. Most of their career they released albums with one or two potential hit songs and a lot of filler... but with Desolation Boulevard they produced a classic hard rock album that many still rank as one of the best ever. I own the cd, and it's good from begining to end. I could think of several songs from it that have been covered by other bands, and I began to wonder... could you assemble a full cd of the tracks on this album with nothing but covers?

We have the Girlschool cover of Fox on the Run above. That was their biggest hit ever, of course.

The second hit from the cd was Ballroom Blitz. That's been covered several times... most notably by Krokus and The Damned.

No You Don't was covered by Pat Benetar on her first album. In fact, I knew her version before I heard the original.

A.C.D.C. was covered by Joan Jett a year ago. (In fact, the bubblegum metal of Sweet seems to have influenced a number of female rockers -- for all that some of Sweet's songs were very mysogynistic -- Lita Ford has covered their song Hellraiser and The Donnas have covered Wig Wam Bam.)

Saxon and Vince Neil have covered Set Me Free.

For some reason I can't find a good cover of The Six Teens even though it was the third hit from this album. Also Sweet F.A. is a song that people consider a... well, I don't know if highlight is the right word, it's a notable song but perhaps in part because of some lyrics that are... mysogynistic, at the very least... anyway I haven't found a cover of that either. Other songs on the album probably don't have covers simply because they aren't necessarily great songs. ^_^ Still, that's not doing bad, so... just for fun....

Here's what I can come up with:

1. Balroom Blitz: The Sweet Krokus The Damned
2. The Six Teens: Sweet
3. No You Don't: Sweet Pat Benetar
4. A.C.D.C.: Sweet Joan Jett
5. I Wanna Be Committed: No videos no covers. Not one of the better songs on the cd.
6. Sweet FA: Sweet
7. Fox on the Run: Sweet Girlschool Scorpions
8. Set Me Free: Sweet Heathen
9. Into the Night: No video, no cover.
10. Solid Gold Brass: The Sweet