TDOS Tropical Island IPOD Cover Draft - Round 20

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
So should I not pick? Next pick hasn't come in yet
No no, even if the other person had already picked, you could still have gone. You timing out triggers them getting to go, but you can make up your pick at any time before your next one. It just means the people after you will have a chance to steal your choices.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Boys of summer the Ataris



And that cover I've long had mixed feeling about. The music lends itself to a sped up punked treatment, if there had been no original it would have been a good song. But I always thought what made the original so great was the sense of, borrowing a term here I once heard used about a Lord Byron poem, regretful decreptitude in those lyrics and the original video. it was a song that almost had to be sung by someone heading toward middle age, looking back decades ago to a long lost love, that perfect summer, whatever. There's always that girl (or guy) back there for everyone as they start getting older. That long lost regret that makes you feel lonely and old. And you know, punking up the song and having it sung by kids rather than an aging artist is just...it gets the technical stuff right. It works as a punk melody. But it loses all the emotion that made the first one stand out to me from way back. So as I say I've always had mixed feelings on that one. Like it was toe tapping and yet missing the point at the same time. Kids blundering about not understanding the material sort of thing.
 
Using my phone so I'll come back and edit more details later. My pick is Nothing Compares 2U by Sinead O Connor. Can someone please notify the next person for me as I'm in a hurry!

Nothing Compares 2U - Sinead O'Connor (I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - 1990)
Originally by Prince

This song, and video, was iconic during the early 90s and is another song that I grew up with, even if I wasn't even born during it's release year. Sinead is a controversial figure but there's no doubting her talent as a musician, particularly in her younger years. She's Irish too, which helps! Didn't want to risk this one being stolen.
 
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Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
Time for this classic to come off the board...

(Family-Friendly Note: occasional strong lyrics)

I Will Survive - Cake (1996, released on Fashion Nugget)
Original written by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris, performed by Gloria Gaynor (1978)


OK, so here I'll make myself feel old...this cover is as old now as the original song was when it was covered. Wow. At any rate, great song - we've got the greatest (and by "greatest" I really mean "most widely popular nationwide", Padrino :p) Sacramento band from the last 20 years going out there and completely owning a disco song - so much so that it's perhaps the signature song of their career. Maybe that's why it lasted so long here - it's kind of easy to forget that it's a cover. In fact, when I was making my list of songs for this draft, I cam up with two other covers by the band to consider and completely and totally whiffed on this one...until last night. It's a good thing, because my decisions in the first three rounds would have been a lot more difficult had I realized this song was on the board. Ignorance is bliss, and knowledge is Cake.
 
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Capt. Factorial

ceterum censeo delendum esse Argentum
Staff member
Using my phone so I'll come back and edit more details later. My pick is Nothing Compares To You by Sinead O Connor. Can someone please notify the next person for me as I'm in a hurry!
Sneaky. Did not even realize that was a cover. I suspect there will be plenty of those moments for me and others for the rest of the way.
 
OK, so here I'll make myself feel old...this cover is as old now as the original song was when it was covered. Wow. At any rate, great song - we've got the greatest Sacramento band from the last 20 years going out there and completely owning a disco song - so much so that it's perhaps the signature song of their career. Maybe that's why it lasted so long here - it's kind of easy to forget that it's a cover. In fact, when I was making my list of songs for this draft, I cam up with two other covers by the band to consider and completely and totally whiffed on this one...until last night. It's a good thing, because my decisions in the first three rounds would have been a lot more difficult had I realized this song was on the board. Ignorance is bliss, and knowledge is Cake.
i would dispute this point.

;)
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Using my phone so I'll come back and edit more details later. My pick is Nothing Compares To You by Sinead O Connor. Can someone please notify the next person for me as I'm in a hurry!
Damn, I just found out that was a cover in research for this draft and was hoping to sneakily snag it later :)
 
You'd go with Deftones? Or is there somebody I'm missing?
Deftones would, of course, top my list. but i'd also throw Far on that pile, along with Will Haven, Team Sleep, Hella, Death Valley High, Ghostride, Eightfourseven, the Revolution Smile, !!!, and Death Grips, who would be the newest Sacramento band to truly top "best of" lists (though they've just recently called it quits). Cake would probably be somewhere in there, too, but they'd bottom out on any such list of mine due to personal taste; they just never did it for me. my point was simply that "the greatest Sacramento band from the last 20 years" is certainly a debatable point...

:p
 
I Will Survive - Cake (1996, released on Fashion Nugget)
Yeah, this probably would have been my next pick. I'm not devastated to lose it (Cake has released enough awesome covers that I don't even feel terribly worried announcing that fact, so something like this simply helps thin the herd for us indecisive types), and would probably rank it below a couple of the other things I'm considering, but it was definitely getting to the point that ignoring a well known cover from a Sacramento band any longer would have been playing with fire.
 

Larry89

Disgruntled Kings Fan
Finally back to me!! with my next pick..

I Shot the Sheriff - Eric Clapton


"I Shot the Sheriff" is a song written by Bob Marley, told from the point of view of a narrator who admits to having killed the local sheriff, and claims to be falsely accused of having killed the deputy sheriff. The narrator also claims to have acted in self-defense when the sheriff tried to shoot him. The song was first released in 1973 on The Wailers' album Burnin'. Marley explained his intention as follows: "I want to say 'I shot the police' but the government would have made a fuss so I said 'I shot the sheriff' instead… but it's the same idea: justice."
Wikipedia Article

Single by Eric Clapton
from the album 461 Ocean Boulevard
Released July 1974
Format 12" single
Recorded April–May 1974 at Criteria Recording Studios, Miami, Florida
Genre Blues rock, reggae
Length 4:26 (album version)
3:30 (single version)
Label RSO
Writer(s) Bob Marley
Producer(s) Tom Dowd

Original

I shot the Sheriff - Bob Marley



Single by The Wailers
from the album Burnin'
Released 1973
Format 12" single
Recorded Harry J. Studios, Kingston, Jamaica, April 1973
Genre Reggae
Length 4:41
Label Tuff Gong, Island
Writer(s) Bob Marley
Producer(s) Chris Blackwell and The Wailers


Now I am not trying to start a war of which version is better, each is good and has its own persona, but the message remains the same. It is one of my favorite songs of all time, heard it when i was a child and the seed that was planted in my head grew into a garden of music which has yet its fruit to ripen.

Fun Facts (and maybe spoilers for some shows):

In The Sopranos episode 4.11 ("Calling All Cars"), which aired in 2002, Eric Clapton's rendition can be heard playing in the background when Tony Soprano is on the phone with Svetlana. Ten episodes earlier (in episode 4.1, "For All Debts Public and Private"), Tony had set up his protege Christopher Moltisanti to kill Detective-Lieutenant Barry Haydu on the night of Haydu's retirement party.

In The Simpsons episode #248 ("Behind the Laughter"), Marge Simpson performs the opening of the song as part of a nightclub act. She then tells her audience, "So next time you see a sheriff, shoot him.... a smile!"

In the 1994 hip hop mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat, a scene involving gansta rapper Ice Cold (Rusty Cundieff) getting pulled over by a gated community’s security guard unit has one guard confiscating one of his registered guns and sarcastically says: “Let me guess…you shot the sheriff, but you didn’t shoot the deputy.”
 
Time to add some low hanging fruit, which I was expecting Bricklayer to pick some time ago. This rock anthem was originally released by the Arrows in 1975, and the cover version by Joan Jett famously turned her career from unrecordable to superstar. With my 4th Selection, I choose:

I Love Rock 'n' Roll - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (1982) - I Love Rock 'n' Roll


Original: The Arrows - Single (1975)


More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Rock_'n'_Roll
 
I've checked and rechecked 4 times now, but somehow this song is still available. I also completely forgot about it till driving in the car the other day.

For my 4th round pick, I'm taking the #82 song of all time, inducted into the Grammy hall of fame in 1999, and the #4 all time guitar song per Rolling Stone. 'American musicologist Robert Walser wrote that it is "the first hit song built around power chords"[while critic Denise Sullivan of Allmusicwrites, "'You Really Got Me' remains a blueprint song in the hard rock and heavy metal arsenal (Source: Wikipedia)."'

Guess it yet?

The Kinks' Dave Davies has gone on record as having a personal dislike of Van Halen's cover of the song and believes "They (Van Halen) would be penniless without The Kinks" (Wikipedia).

While I doubt that to be true, this song certainly didn't hurt album sales. Taking a song that already had balls, and making it even more so, with their first single:

Van Halen, You Really Got Me, 1978

The Kinks, 1964

P.S. It would be incredibly cool if Eruption could be paired with this song as this is still how it's usually played on the radio. But I understand if they are considered two separate songs.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Really_Got_Me
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, had to think about what I wanted to do here, as my current action is likely to lead to me losing out on at least 1 of the 4 remaining songs I especially wanted. Nonetheless, I'm going to take this one, and then pass it over to my fair combatant at the end of the snake and see how she reacts.



Because the Night -- 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged (1993)

Because of the murky origin story of this song, I'm not going to post the original, just in case somebody wants to argue it and take a different version. Nonetheless this represents the peak version, and really the peak for a lot of things all at once in that performance. It was Natalie Merchant's peak, probably 10,000 Maniacs peak, and their final hurrah as Natalie left them after the show, it might have been the peak for that whole Unplugged series, or at least one of a series of mini peaks in the final years of MTV as a primarily music oriented channel. Anyway, this was a great version which I used to annoy my college roommate by playing entirely too much.
 
Ok, had to think about what I wanted to do here, as my current action is likely to lead to me losing out on at least 1 of the 4 remaining songs I especially wanted. Nonetheless, I'm going to take this one, and then pass it over to my fair combatant at the end of the snake and see how she reacts.



Because the Night -- 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged (1993)

Because of the murky origin story of this song, I'm not going to post the original, just in case somebody wants to argue it and take a different version. Nonetheless this represents the peak version, and really the peak for a lot of things all at once in that performance. It was Natalie Merchant's peak, probably 10,000 Maniacs peak, and their final hurrah as Natalie left them after the show, it might have been the peak for that whole Unplugged series, or at least one of a series of mini peaks in the final years of MTV as a primarily music oriented channel. Anyway, this was a great version which I used to annoy my college roommate by playing entirely too much.
I wouldn't call it murky. The song was co-written by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, and they both released the song -- so you could say there were two original versions.
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Time to add some low hanging fruit, which I was expecting Bricklayer to pick some time ago. This rock anthem was originally released by the Arrows in 1975, and the cover version by Joan Jett famously turned her career from unrecordable to superstar. With my 4th Selection, I choose:

I Love Rock 'n' Roll - Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (1982) - I Love Rock 'n' Roll


Original: The Arrows - Single (1975)


More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Rock_'n'_Roll
Sometimes it really is just a question of who's got the bigger balls and can sell it better. :p
 
Okay. I have no idea what on my list (which still hasn't been formalized, I might add, yet keeps growing and growing) is most in danger. I can't get a read on things. I think my next two picks would probably be safe for a while, because they're fairly obscure and/or niche-y, but they're well known enough that I also wouldn't be surprised to see someone grab one or both of them before I get a chance. To end the fourth round, I'm taking:

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" -- Devo (On Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, 1977)
Originally written (Jagger & Richards) and recorded by The Rolling Stones, 1965

Have always loved this track (and the original) since long before I was old enough to have any idea what the song was about beyond a general frustration. As I've gotten older, however, I've developed a particular fondness for this cover and for the way its frantic instrumentation transforms the Stones' frustrations with both growing consumerism and their own celebrity into a jangly paranoia.


Original recording:
 
And to start the fifth round, I'm taking:

"Soul Kitchen" -- X (On Los Angeles, 1980)
Originally written and recorded by The Doors, 1967

As is the case with a number of the covers I'm considering, including my previous pick, this is a case in which both cover and original were released before I was making my own music decisions and both became known to me through my mother's extensive vinyl collection at roughly the same time. I consider X's cover and The Doors' original as completely distinct songs, and I'd be sad if I had to live without either of them in my collection. For a bonus bit of authenticity, X's cover was released on their debut album, which was produced by Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek.


Original recording:
 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Ok, well here's me probably letting something else slip away before I pick again, but just in case anybody else knew this was a cover I gotta take it:


Bette Davis Eyes -- Kim Carnes (1981)

A song that's long been one of my very favorite 80's synth-pop tunes, and also a prime example of a cover taking a nothing song with no apparent potential and turning it into an enormous hit with a different treatment. In fact I think that it may have been the largest hit of the entire 1980s. Its less famous 30 years later, perhaps because the screen siren that was its topic is no longer still around giving interviews for Johnny Carson and whatnot. In any case, maybe I could have left this sit out there for 10 more rounds, and nobody even knows to take it. Or maybe somebody snags it next pick. Did not know, and like the song too much to let it dangle and find out the hard way.

Here's the original. Quite the retread:

 
Can we call this iconic? I think we can. Probably known to some people here as the theme to The Wonder Years...

Both the original and cover are classics.

Joe Cocker, With a Little Help From My Friends, 1968


The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967

 

Bricklayer

Don't Make Me Use The Bat
and that of course was exactly the song that I knew I was giving up when I went the way I did on my picks.

Kinda came down to how I wanted to play this draft. I consider that to be one of the greatest covers of all time, as in best covers, most accomplished etc. but...how often do I really listen to it? If I am stuck on an island with 20 songs for all time would that be one I'd want? Etc. But its a great great cover.

This is I think my favorite version of it, a huge orchestral star studded arena affair from when he was older:



just taking one of the Beatles little pop tunes and taking it so so big.