On myself... and anyone else who didn't like my newest track. I'm going to talk a bit about how to cover a new wave song. Alright?

Here is a classic song that has been covered time and time again by many other musicians. Caya and Netwerk heard the synthisizers and just went ahead with making sub-techno dance covers while The Quakes turn it into a punk rock song.

So heres the original by Real Life.

It's pretty tame, but still pretty interesting. Still has a bit of bite to it, but as far as New Wave goes... a lot of New Wave despite rellying heavily on synthisizers and dance aesthetics New Wave is a genre that has it's roots it the Punk world and early New Wave is the foundation to the whole Goth sub-culture. I typically love this kind of music. In this case, lyrically... yeah it's not that deep, nothing special. Musicially it's catchy, they even through in a little guitar solo. I can get behind that. The synthisizers are interesting sounding and I always loved the eighties synth sound.

Now for the cover, I actually heard this cover before i ever heard the song. It's not Caya or The Quakes... and there have been recent covers by bands like Thrice and Deadstar Assembly, haven't really listened to them. No, the one that comes to mind for me is from a little known Euro-Industrial band called Zeromancer. On there album Eurotrash they had a number of songs I kind of liked when I was an angsty teenager, and now as an angsty young adult in his mid twenties, well... i found the album sitting at the pile of CDs the other day and kind of been listening to it with perplexity. Not bad, but... eh... but I have to say, I do like the direction they went with this song.

So the original did lend itself to something heavier. Zeromancer just went into that direction, I'm sure Deadstar Assembly went further... just basing that on the name. But this band did it first and they did it well. It's still got a lot of synth, and I like the voicings they used. But the guitar cords and hooks add more of a depth... the vocalist did well, I like the call back in the song and I have to say... I like it a little bit better than the original.

Here's the music:

But i guess most of you aren't that impressed with New Wave music, it must be easy to improve on one of these bleep bleep songs, with there pathetic old technology and dismal synth melodies. Well, that's a matter of taste isn't it. And sometimes it's difficult to understand what if something tastes good or bad, for instance Candyass... is it going to be sweet like candy, or is it just going to taste like ass. After listening to Orgies album Candyass, I'll have to put my vote toward the former. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The song Blue Monday was originally created by the band The New Order, a synth based New Wave band. They once where more of a punk outfit back when they were known as Joy Devision, than there frontman hung himself... this was about fifteen years before Kurt Cobain committed suicide. What can i say, Ian Curtis was just ahead of his time.

So what was left of the band split, but than regrouped under a different name. They wrote many songs, many of them, though differant from what they created when they were Joy Division were pretty good. But there is one song that I find particularly amazing by them, and that song is Blue Monday.

This entire song is just perfection. The way it opens, that drumline, the heaviness of it, rhythmically it just makes the right hits. The synthisizers, the bassline, the wet sounding guitar rift. I wish i put this much effort into my music, and anyone who listens to my stuff can probably hear the influence that this kind of music has had on me.

And beyond the music, the lyrics are really great. The disillusionment of the relationship, how the singer has been completely gutted, hurt and destroyed by the relationship they're in. They put effort into both the music and the lyrics and it shows.

Alright, but what was I saying about Candyass? oh right, Orgy is a band. They call themselves Noise Pop, or some other silly made up genre. They're terrible.

But what happens when a terrible band covers an amazing song, well, other than ruining it. Actually, in this case they really didn't. Musically it holds up, the guitar is actually pretty good, it's heavy... Orgy's cover of Blue Monday manages to do the same thing that Zeromancers cover of Send Me An Angel did. In fact this song is the only reason I bought this album. I guess the album lives up to it's name, this song was the candy in this ass of an album.

Alright so that's what i have to say about music covers. Not really planning on making another comparison review type of post. I think last time was actually on The Killers covering a Joy Devision song... LINK!