For whatever reason, “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is The Stooges song that other bands love to cover most. It was a popular cover (at least for a band such as The Stooges) in the 1980s and in every decade since. Maybe it’s because of the relatively simple, repetitive riff. Maybe it’s because of it’s because of the piano on it. Whatever there reason, it’s far and away the band’s most popular song in terms of covers.
Run! Rabbit Run! are a Chinese pop duo whose sound is a spin on Western alt-pop. They put out an album last year on Bandcamp and have returned with an EP of covers that primarily features extremely modern takes on standards from the 1930s. In two senses, their cover of The Stooges stands out. For one thing, the song stands out like a sore thumb among most of the other choices on the EP both in terms of its era – the songs are either much older or much newer – and the original’s sound, which is way more aggressive than the other tracks they cover. But it also begins much dreamier than the other tracks, with a sound that could be described as glitchy dream pop without guitars, or something like that. However, the guitars do eventually come in.
The cover opens with bleep-boops with the girls singing dreamily over the electronic soundscape, at a very slow pace. But for the chorus a drum track comes in and the pace picks up. There’s a brief, distorted keyboard fill and then the track explodes with drums and distorted guitar, though the guitar is only playing single notes not the original. There’s a bit of a slower vamp and then the cover transforms back into the original dreamy electronic sound for its coda.
It’s a fun version that feels like it’s two different covers pasted together. Somehow it works. Listen below:
