I'm So Bored
with the vestiges of irony already. This is no longer 1994, but I'm takin' a quick dinner break, and what do I hear but Cake doing one of their "ironic" covers - "Strangers in the Night." Now, I'm not meaning to rag on Cake - I think their eminently okay; it's just that this example (recorded for a concept album soundtrack for a zombie videogame) is just emblematic of a cultural trend that's been bothering me.
My point: isn't it more interesting to perform an "unexpected" cover because it's good, and to invest your interpretation with commensurate enthusiasm, rather than record a lifeless song replete with air quotes that murmur in that most blase of speech accessible only by hipsters "Hey, we're like, doin' a song that your grandparents liked. Bet you didn't expect a cool band like us to perform it."
"Strangers in the Night" is an amazing song with an amazing history (rogue upstart producer for Sinatra sabotages a session in another room in the same studio for another version of the song - a very overeager song publisher is to blame - by removing the tubes from the mixing board), and is very evocative of an unusual cultural crossroads that occurred in the middle sixites, when AM pop radio wasn't segregated into artifically-created genre ghettos like it is today. Listen to "SitN" - do you hear Frank Sinatra wooing Mia Farrow at a mysterious midnight ball? Listen to it in MONO, and crank the hell out of it, and melt away as the majestic strings come in in the middle 8, and thank God that He gave us the gift of music. And then listen to Frank on the outro, the sublime "doobie-doobie doo, do-do-dah-de-dah" (rumor has it that Scooby-Doo was named by an animator mishearing this scatting at the end). If you have a cultural snobbery against Frank Sinatra, you need to grow a pair of ears.
I'm just thoroughly disappointed in you, Cake.
posted by Austin @ 5:34 PM
9 Comments:
"Bohemian Rhapsody" performed by The Flaming Lips on the album Killer Queen is a prime example of a band taking a classic song and remaking it in a way that both pays tribute to the original genius of the song while creating a sense of individuality.
Way to go, Wayne! :-)
Way not to go, Cake. :-(
Yes! You should also hear their recent "If I Only Had a Brain."
Back in the day they did a killer "What a Wonderful World."
Perhaps this reveals my true un-coolness but I really like Cake's cover of "The Guitar Man." I found myself singing along to the original at the grocery store awhile back until I realized that Jay was pretending not to know me.
I also really like their cover of "The Guitar Man." Actually, as soon as I read this post, I found myself singing it under my breath without realizing it at first, which probably also reveals my true un-coolness.
C'mon!
I didn't say liking Cake was uncool.
No but you did seem to imply (or perhaps I just inferred) that liking Cake covers was a bit uncool.
No, I just didn't care for the one song. "I Will Survive" rocks my world.
I have to chime in with the Cake'rs. I think its a fab cover, well rendered. Is it no longer legitimate to cover a well know song? I would make the argument that today's psuedo-cool thing to do is to find the songs in the cracks in the racks, as if the covering band discovered the original. In the end, I feel it boils down to the quality control.
Cake for President!
No, it is still legitimate to cover a well-known song. And this would be a great song to cover. I just felt it lacked passion. I was really kinda underwhelmed.
Like I said, Cake, for the most part, is good. And their covers, for the most part, are good.
I love your argument about the cracks in the racks. And I agree that there is nothing gained by going obscure over recognizable. Though I think when you go recognizable, you have to put up.
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