As a preteen in the late ‘80s, I had a very detailed Saturday T.V. watching routine. At 11:30 p.m., I would tune into Saturday Night Live. Then just around midnight I would switch over to MTV for three hours of the metal show Headbangers Ball. (I was admittedly a bit of a night owl back then.)
Beyond all of the hair and the epic videos, I remember finding the commercials a bit baffling, especially the frequent ads for disco compilations. I felt like this was just bad ad placement. Time has taught me otherwise. There is room in one’s heart for both metal and disco. In fact, just a few short years later, in 1992, I bought a copy of the Bee Gees’ Greatest, a compilation from the band’s disco era.
I have no idea whether this purchase had anything to do with those ads. But I’d like to imagine that the images of bell-bottom clad dancers grooving to four-on-the-floor beats helped play some part in the origins of the band Tragedy. The cover band bills itself as an “all metal tribute to the Bee Gees and beyond.” They even earned a spot on our best Bee Gees covers list. In recent years, they’ve ventured, well, “beyond” the music of Brothers Gibb and have taken on the likes of ABBA, Cher and the Weather Girls (you know, “It’s Raining Men”).
The band will continue its decidedly non-Bee Gee direction this spring when they release I Am Woman, where they pay homage to many great female singers, disco or otherwise, including Dolly Parton, Gloria Gaynor and Barbara Streisand. In advance of the album, the band recently released a video and single for its cover of the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited.” The track was first released by the sisters in the very un-disco era of 1982 and was powered by a sultry video of the siblings in various states of undress.
Tragedy’s video features the spandex-clad lads playing in front of a faux CGI stadium crowd, where they deliver an over-the-top power metal cover. It comes complete with some Iron Maiden-style shredding, hard pounding double-bass drum pedal work and screeching vocals. My 11-year-old self would have been appalled, but current me is happy to pump my fist and headbang along. I really do “think I like it.”
Click here to listen to more Pointer Sisters covers.
