If you were a child in Canada in the early 1980s, like I was, you watched Fraggle Rock. Now, it aired in other countries as well – the UK (TVS), the US (HBO) – but in Canada it was on, CBC, our national public broadcaster, for four years. There wasn’t much on TV in Canada in the 1980s and so it was a treat that we had these cuddly, wacky puppets on the one channel everybody got. And I was the prime demographic: I was barely a toddler when it premiered. I hadn’t thought much about the show, in recent years, but I do remember the theme song, though, which is catchy and really easy for children to sing along to. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
The title track from George Michael’s Faith album saw the former Wham! member further shedding his bubblegum image. After the shock of the lyrics to the first single from that album, “I Want Your Sex,” the second single was more about the music, combining blue-eyed soul with rock ‘n’ roll, mashing up Bo Diddley and Duane Eddy into a very hot and tasty stew. “Faith” wound up being Billboard’s number one single for all of 1988. Accept it before it destroys you, it said. Oh, wait – sorry, that was Dana Carvey as George Michael.
As “Faith” covers go, Limp Bizkit made the biggest impression with theirs, racking up over 25 million YouTube views and over 55 million Spotify plays. But not everyone liked it, including Michael himself: “What we’ve heard from George Michael’s people is that he hates it and hates us for doing it,” said guitarist Wes Borland. So we decided to seek out five other covers that may be less famous, but which have something that hits us just right.
Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.
Dolly Parton – the fourth of twelve children, a philanthropist, actor, and musician with 50+ studio albums to date – has been releasing and writing music since she was ten. On October 15th, 1973, she released the single, “Jolene,” from her upcoming album of the same name. It became her second number-one single as a solo artist on the country charts, and upon its UK release in 1976, it was a top-ten hit in the UK Singles Charts. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
The movie Ghostbusters has never been without controversy. Dan Aykroyd’s original premise, featuring himself and John Belushi, was seen as financially prohibitive, and was sent back for a re-write. Casting issue abounded. The studio doubted it would make its money back. (Spoiler alert: it did.) The very idea of the 2016 reboot was met with derision, and the reboot itself fell far short of its financial goals. On a somewhat higher profile, the band that director Ivan Reitman wanted to provide songs for key segments, Huey Lewis and the News, turned the job down. Reitman finally tapped Detroit guitarist Ray Parker, Jr., a former session musician who had found commercial success with his band Raydio, to come up with a theme song. That theme, while a massive hit (three weeks at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100), provided further controversy, as Huey Lewis later sued Parker, claiming the Ghostbusters theme was plagiarized from his song “I want a New Drug.”
The case was settled out of court, but the controversy didn’t end there. Several years later, Ray Parker Jr. sued Huey Lewis for violating the original settlement’s non-disclosure agreement by discussing it on VH1’s show Behind the Music.
None of this drama should, nor does, detract from the song itself. The Ghostbusters theme is easily one of the most popular, hook-filled, memorable movie themes of all time, and it’s a Halloween staple at parties and on the radio. Popularity, of course, invites imitation; secondhandsongs.com identifies about 40 cover versions, from artists as disparate as David Essex and Andrew Gold to the Leningrad Cowboys. There are lots of note-for-note recreations, and many that reflect the style of the performer. Here are five of them, in no particular order, each bringing something a little bit different to the party.
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