Cover Lovers.

Long ago, multiple interpretations of a song were not at all unusual. When songwriters wrote the songs and singers mostly just sang them the chart success of a song was in fact measured not by the performance of individual versions but by the performance of any and all versions. Songwriters reaped the lion's share of the profits and notoriety. Artists in those days made their money on the road. Radio in those days was largely a regional affair, making an artist's success across the board a rare phenomenon. Songs were mostly entities unto themselves.
One can make multiple arguments for the exact moment the tipping point occurred and the many factors that pushed it along. Increased national exposure due to expanding radio markets, the advent of television, a boom in singers and bands who wrote their own material in addition to covering the work of others, the escalating prevalence of fanzines , even burgeoning changes in cultural mores(such as a decline in demand for the "vanillazation" by white artists of black music) all contributed to the new Artist As End All Be All mentality that by the mid-to-late 60's had the culture firmly in its grip. While it is pretty commonly known that Elvis wasn't the first to record "Hound Dog", you'd be hard-pressed to find an average person who knows that the Dixie Cups were at least the third group to record "Chapel of Love". Even in an era where the songs were still being written largely by people behind the scenes(and artists given almost no creative input outside of occasional refusals of material), the hit version had become the version that mattered and the group ran away with the bragging rights, if not the actual rights(or royalties). Not much later, as songwriters moved further into the shadows and artists further into the spotlight, the modern idea of covers would be born.
We here at Neon Angels On the Road to Ruin simply adore covers. They are like legitimized karaoke, which we also heartily enjoy. If you've already downloaded the Miho Hatori version of Madonna's "Crazy For You" posted here previously, perhaps you understand our enthusiasm. At their best(as in the case of the aforementioned), covers offer the listener perhaps a new spin on a song already loved; revealing dimensions of beauty, depth and plain old awesomeness perhaps unknown even to those most familiar with the source material. Bands interested in covering others' work could certainly take a page from the Cibo Matto/Grace Jones School of Rendering Things Completely Your Own. Covers can even occasionally outshine their origins. Gloria Jones once admitted she liked Soft Cell's version of her Northern Soul chestnut, "Tainted Love" better than her own(we've drawn our own conclusions on that one but okay, Miss Jones, have it your way).
At their worst, covers can seem like exercises in unforgivable vanity. Courtney Love has covered just about every song under the sun, usually in a live setting(at times, from the sound of it, her bandmates sitting by cringing a bit as they plunk along after her), often with unintentionally hilarious results. Sometimes they're just lapses of judgement. While we ourselves listen imagining(wishing!) someone else were singing Rhianna's original probably no one was desperate to hear Mandy Moore's treacly interpretation of "Umbrella", harmless and adorable as she is. Maybe not so harmless on second thought: Moore has actually recorded a whole album of treacly interpretations of others' songs.
Somewhere in the middle lies an entire universe of covers that neither radically improve upon nor necessarily insult the memory of their sources. Maybe they're window dressing for movie soundtracks, b-sides and throwaways or space-fillers on live setlists. While they may pose no threat of erasing the original's impact, they can be a lot of fun. Blondie's live version of "Heroes" may be a pretty exact replica of the Bowie song(Debbie Harry's less-than-Thin-White-Duke-worthy vocal aside) but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Except for a slight alteration of title, Stereo Total's approach to their version of the Plastics' "I Love You Oh No" seems to have been to run it through a ditto machine... but most people haven't heard the Plastics' version so "c'est la vie!" Still more covers are just ill-advised attempts to take a song from one particular genre and give it a new outfit(witness the woefully unweildy Black Box Recorder cover of Althea and Donna's reggae confection "Uptown Top Ranking").
Whatever the outcome, the act of performing covers is certainly to be smiled at. It appeals to a basic human desire to align ourselves with the things we admire. It harks back to childhood days spent playing dress-up before the idea we could be anything we wanted became qualifiable and adult concerns rendered our once-immutable belief in possibility into insecurity and cynicism. Covers are, by nature, uncynical. While it may be a lark to hear Courtney Love growl her way through "Hungry Like the Wolf" or groan-inducing to hear Cake stutter through "I Will Survive"; you can be fairly certain that, ironic posturing aside, they want a little of their magic for themselves.

So here you have a selection of covers we're really enjoying lately.

Eleanor Rigby - Aretha Franklin (available on 30 Greatest Hits)

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Marianne Faithfull (Bob Dylan Cover)

Sing This All Together - Cibo Matto (Rolling Stones cover from the Super Relax EP)

Until It's Time For You to Go - Claudine Longet (Buffy St. Marie cover available on Claudine)

Out In the Streets - Blondie (Shangri-las cover from the Blondie reissue)

Paint It Black - the Mo-Dettes (Rolling Stones cover)

TV-Glotzer(White Punks On Dope) - Nina Hagen Band (Tubes cover from NunSex/MonkRock)

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow - Ronnie Spector (Ramones cover from the recently reissued Siren album)

This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us - Siouxsie and the Banshees (Sparks cover off the Through the Looking Glass album)

Light My Fire - Erma Franklin (Doors cover)

Use Me - Grace Jones (Bill Withers cover from the Nightclubbing album)

Dance (Demo) - Los Super Elegantes (ESG cover)

When You Were Mine - Cristina ( Prince cover available on Sleep It Off)

So Sad About Us - the Breeders (Who cover from Safari EP)

It should also be noted we are not omnipotent and have occasionally been confronted with the fact that some of our favorite songs are in fact... gasp!... covers. One such example is "Super Cool", which we had always taken for granted to be a Stereo Total original. Well, it's not and we feel no shame in our ignorance. None whatsoever! So, we're bundling the Plastic Bertrand original in with the rest of this gang just for fun.

Super Cool - Plastic Bertrand

Bring Us The Head Of Hip And Cool!

Hip and Cool is the enemy. We say "is" as opposed to "are" because while separately hip and cool seem fairly benign(though even on its own hip is still fairly grotesque), when joined together as one they are more or less the root of all evil. That is the monster we are dealing with; not separate entities but a multifaceted beast with a bloodlust for paralyzing our ability to enjoy experiences on our own terms.
Hip and Cool chokes the culture, enslaves otherwise rational minds and is even capable of obscuring the loving sunshine of actual Fun. Hip and Cool, not cabaret laws, keeps New Yorkers standing slack-shouldered and casually soigné when they ought to be dancing. A true sheep in wolf's clothing Hip and Cool is often just insecurity with claws. It is time to retire this chimera to whatever abyss Irony is occupying so that they can sit and soak up each other's smugness.
All this we know and yet Hip and Cool remain powerfully seductive. There is a curious high in aesthetic oneupmanship over our fellow man. We are not immune to this sensation. Even as we type this we are listening to obscure French pop from the 1960's in our overpriced vintage houseclothes. We don't speak French or live in anything but modern times but everything just sounds cooler en francais and until fairly recently modern men's clothing has been all but unwearable for fellows of our particular build... right?
We are very much aware that our dress and ideologies set us apart from mainstream culture and this gives us nothing but great satisfaction. Without a modicum of conceit culture would cease to exist. However, we are also aware that at the endgame of our existence the cultural majesty with which we have lived our lives will matter not one bit. What will count is whether or not we allowed ourselves to enjoy it.

To accompany this post we have chosen two of our favoritest jams related to the idea of "coolness". Favoritest because they either, as in the case of Bratmobile, plainly reject the idea or, as in the case of the Waitresses, hilariously play to both sides of the fence. Enjoy.

Cool Schmool - Bratmobile
Wise Up - The Waitresses