Who decided you could re-make that song?

Re-makes. Lately it seems that a good re-make is becoming harder to find than the proverbial needle in the haystack. Some of the worst artists or groups get that idea in their heads they can do a better version than the original artist. I'll start things off with some terrible Duran Duran covers. First, that techno re-make of "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran. Because no horrible re-make thread would ever be complete without it!

As I am a hardcore duranie, this is a Cardinal Sin. Taking a song about making your way through life and contemplating it's meaning, and setting it to happy happy joy joy music is a no-no. And let's not even get me started on Courtney Love's off-key caterwauling of "Hungry Like The Wolf".

And to the country artist who decided to re-make "That's All" by Genesis: YOU ARE ON NOTICE! :redangry:

Finally, this thread also give mention of a horrible re-make THREE-peater: None other than Britney Spears. For having the audacity to re-make(very badly) "I Love Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett, "Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones, AND "My Prerogative" by Bobby Brown. For the love of Peter(Venkman), somebody stop her!

How about you folks? What songs do you wish weren't touched, and who was the artist or group that shouldn't have even thought about it?

Well, when it comes to bad covers, there's really one that stands head and shoulders above the rest for me.
Pun-Colle.
I'd mentioned this on that other board. It's a bunch of squeaky-voiced Japanese actresses doing punk tunes. Just listen how they butcher two of them.

Now, I'm not one of those people who kisses the ground Pink Floyd walks on, but I think they're a relatively good band (well, their songs that are actually songs are songs anyway tend to be pretty good. I loved Dark Side of the Moon but not all that much else.)

But this?

This made me very very unhappy.

NastyHobbitses wrote:

Any time a Disney pop star who isn't the singing voice in the original film covers a song from the Disney animated canon, Lea Salonga, Judy Kuhn and Jodi Benson band together and murder a puppy.

"When You Wish Upon a Star" by whoever-the-fuck-no-one-knows-her makes me want to club baby seals.

Seriously, those covers make me SO. FUCKING. ANGRY. It's not just that they make the songs into obnoxious teeny pop, which is not a genre I'm fond of. The thing is, you can tell the "artists" have NO goddamn idea what they're singing about. All the substance -- the message, the nuance, the emotion -- is just completely hacked out, leaving a vapid, empty shell.

It's not even that the songs were necessarily deep to begin with (When You Wish Upon a Star is pretty straightforward), it's just... they're like robots. They're singing the words, but they don't listen to them. And it's so reminiscent of Disney's marketing strategy as a whole that I'd rather not think about it.

(There's nothing wrong with shallow pop once in a while; it's taking the meaning out of songs that already had them that bothers me. I recall the "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" cover being pretty decent.)

Bad Luck Charm wrote:

While were on the subject of bad covers by Jessica Simpson, let's not forget her awful re-make of "These Boots Were Made Walkin'" originally by Nancy Sinatra. How a true girl-power song gets reduced to a total slutfest is beyond all logic(which Jessica severly lacks).

Jessica Simpson could turn an opera/rap based on The SCUM Manifesto into a slut-fest. She's just that Un!Talented.


In other news, I bet money we shall see many "tributes" to IRL Pedobear, now that all that plastic finally killed him.

Miss Prince wrote:

(There's nothing wrong with shallow pop once in a while; it's taking the meaning out of songs that already had them that bothers me. I recall the "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" cover being pretty decent.)

This is why I've always had a soft spot for the album Stay Awake, which has a bunch of interpretations of Disney songs that are sometimes silly, sometimes dark, but almost always deliberate. Tom Waits' creepy take on "Heigh Ho" is surprisingly brilliant (and it was my first exposure to his music, oddly enough).


The Pussycat Dolls' cover of "Jai Ho!" from Slumdog Millionaire makes me sad, if only because of the English lyrics. I know it would be impossible to translate the original to the letter and keep the rhythm and meter intact, but is it so much to ask to put in a little more effort than that shallow, generic "I want you, baby, uh-huuuuh" crap that's in every other Top 40 hit? I mean, I know it's the Pussycat Dolls and their entire schtick is meant to be as marketable and disposable as humanly possible, but I can dream, right?

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

Now, I'm not one of those people who kisses the ground Pink Floyd walks on, but I think they're a relatively good band (well, their songs that are actually songs are songs anyway tend to be pretty good. I loved Dark Side of the Moon but not all that much else.)

But this?

This made me very very unhappy.

What the fuck?

EileenK98 wrote:

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

Now, I'm not one of those people who kisses the ground Pink Floyd walks on, but I think they're a relatively good band (well, their songs that are actually songs are songs anyway tend to be pretty good. I loved Dark Side of the Moon but not all that much else.)

But this?

This made me very very unhappy.

What the fuck?

If you like Scissor Sisters and Pink Floyd, you'll like this.

Like I do.

What's wrong with it besides the fact that it's different? Just curious.

A very nice young man named eugene once bitched me out and taught me a lesson for hating on covers, so I'm probably subconsciously trying to make up for it.

Manny wrote:

Meatloaf thought it was a good idea to remake Celine Dion's "It's all coming back to me now", earning him my eternal irritation. I had to cleanse myself by playing Celine's version on repeat for two weeks after hearing him and some woman murder a timeless classic.

Actually, Jim Steinman wrote the song for Meat Loaf (capital L!) but, since they were kind of suing each other at the time, Jim performed the song on his Pandora's Box album. He later changed his mind and decided Meat could perform it, but they had to sue each other again so Jim had Celine do a cover of it. Then Jim decided Meat could cover it as a duet. (He thought it was more of a woman's song, even though he himself covered it.) They're probably going to sue each other again sometime soon.

InkWeaver wrote:

EileenK98 wrote:

Dr. Professor Science wrote:

Now, I'm not one of those people who kisses the ground Pink Floyd walks on, but I think they're a relatively good band (well, their songs that are actually songs are songs anyway tend to be pretty good. I loved Dark Side of the Moon but not all that much else.)

But this?

This made me very very unhappy.

What the fuck?

If you like Scissor Sisters and Pink Floyd, you'll like this.

Like I do.

What's wrong with it besides the fact that it's different? Just curious.

A very nice young man named eugene once bitched me out and taught me a lesson for hating on covers, so I'm probably subconsciously trying to make up for it.

You have to judge covers in quite a different way than original pieces. With a cover, you can't exactly criticize or praise based on tune or lyrics (unless you are talking specifically about additions to, subtractions from, or changes of the aforementioned). Instead, a cover relies on taking a pre-existing song and turning it into something new and exciting. Certainly, this is a completely different song from the original Comfortably Numb, but not exactly in a good way. The original song's atmosphere and tune were specifically crafted to back up the message of the lyrics (as well as fit into the greater whole of The Wall). It was a pretty damn good song (in my opinion, one of the few good ones on The Wall). When you listen to it, you can hear the music transition from one section to another. There tends to be a lot going on at any time. It's dynamic. It changes. This song, however, is exactly the same beat the whole way through. You can skip from one section of the beginning to near the end and not be able to tell which part of the song you're in. The lyrics, arguably the most important part of this particular song, are buried under needless heavy synthesizer and distortion. In fact this song uses the tired old trick of slowly building the beat (something so overdone in techno songs it should be banned), adding a different section of or instrument to the beat every time the beat cycles. Where there was originally a guitar solo, one that was quite complex and interesting, this song has more repetition of a single beat, though it varies it ever so slightly.

It's club music. Club music doesn't bother me overmuch, since it's supposed to be simplistic and you're not exactly supposed to listen to it very closely. It's for dancing to. The problem here is that they've taken an extremely well-constructed song and removed pretty much everything that made the song what it was in the first place, which sort of defeats the point of covering it at all. Honestly, I think the only reason they've done this is to try and target a slightly different audience. I hate to use the phrase "dumbed down", since it makes me feel like an arrogant asshole (well, pretty much everything here makes me sound like an arrogant asshole, so I guess that's what I am), but that's pretty much exactly what they've done.

Awesome. I just wanted to see the reasoning. (And good reasoning it was.) 'Cause lots of people suffer from Rabid Cover Hate for no other reason than a song is a cover. Not that I'm the authority or whatever, I'm just nosy.

I like Scissor Sisters' original stuff better anyway. This cover is definitely not as lively or fun. I like it all right, but in a "meh" way. I don't hate it, but I don't LOVE it.

Gonna stop making an ass of myself now!