HATS OFF TO THE BUSKERS
I don’t know if the ongoing slump in record/CD sales is being mirrored similarly in the circulation figures of music papers and magazines.
Nowadays I’ll only buy something if there’s the promise of a decent-length article on someone I particularly admire. Failing that, I’ll grab a hold of a magazine or two to take away on holiday just in case there turns out to be a hellishly long flight delay and the battery on the i-pod decides to give up the good fight.
Every now and again I will hand over a few pounds if the CD that’s attached to the cover is of any interest. I rarely give a second glance to a CD that is a round-up of tracks from recent LP releases, but I’ll admit to being a sucker when a special effort is made to produce a tribute CD. I did the other month with an edition of Uncut which comes with Like A Hurricane - A Tribute to Neil Young.
I mention this as a rather rambling intro to what today’s songs are all about.
A few years ago, mid- 2003 to be precise, I actually bought two copies of a particular edition of Uncut, simply because they had two separate CDs entitled White Riot - A Tribute to The Clash, featuring a total of 32 singers and bands doing cover versions of the songs of Strummer/Jones (and Simonen and Headon).
Like most tribute albums, some of the offerings turned out to be half-decent, and one or two I would even go as far as to say are truly inspired. Others are just insipid, while others are plain weird.
Most annoying of all however, is the fact that a couple of them are what I would class as lazy – one that note for note and beat for beat is far too similar to the original.
Some of the songs were taken from other tribute LPs or were a gathering together of b-sides or album tracks, while some turned out to be exclusive recordings previously unavailable before (or indeed since). And while I would never dream of claiming that any of them were superior to the original recordings, there’s some of them been given space on the above mentioned i-pod.
Things like these:-
mp3 : Edwyn Collins - 1977
mp3 : The National - Clampdown
mp3 : Josh Rouse - Straight To Hell
mp3 : Pete Wylie - Stay Free
Incidentally, the last of the above was recorded live at a tiny pub in Haddington, East Lothian at a gig that I'm sure a mate of mine was at. If you're reading this Mr Greer, be sure to tell us all if that was indeed the case.
6 comments:
oh, that looks like a marvellous album :)
Hamell on Trial doing "White Riot" a fine one from that set too..
The Josh Rouse cover is a thing of beauty.
I had both of these and loved them. Stay Free in particular is brilliant. In fact, about half the songs on both CDs were superb.
Now all of them were fabulous indeed: it doesn't happen too often that I buy an album because of stuff I hear in a blog .. but in this case I'll do!
Thanks, mate!
Dirk from Sexyloser.blogspot.com
Dear VV, I wasn't at that particular Pete Wylie visit to Haddington, I was at the following year's gig at the Corn Exchange. He played a very intimate gig to less than 25 people, but never the less he was wonderful. If you remember, you and another regular on this blog were due to come to the gig but I was left to go alone. I was in my element meeting one of my heroes.
Post a Comment