Posts Tagged ‘Miley Cyrus’
Good songs gone bad [Warning: you won’t be able to unhear this]…
Take That was (and sort of still is) a British pop group that dominated the UK charts– and charts in most of the rest of the world– through much of the 90s. Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Mark Owen, and Robbie Williams had 27 hit singles in Britain, 11 of which reached number 1, and seven number 1 albums. Globally, the band hit the top of the charts with 54 singles and 35 albums…
In the second half of the last decade, the group– sans Williams, who had gone solo– toured with a mix of old favorites and new material, including some covers… like this one:
Poor Nirvana can’t catch a break. Here’s Miley Cyrus performing the same tune in what Rolling Stone readers voted “The Worst Cover Song of All Time”…
Click here for Rolling Stone‘s full list of Worst Covers; and here for Flavorwire‘s roster…
###
As we rethink imitation as a form of flattery, we might recall (with an ironic sigh) that it was on this date in 1964 that regular programming commenced on Radio Caroline– the first British pirate radio station. Broadcasting from a converted passenger ferry moored far enough off of English shores to evade government control, Radio Caroline offered emerging artists– mostly rock and soul acts– a route to the listening public that skirted the major record labels’ hammerlock on the market and the BBC’s monopoly on the airwaves.
Here we are now, entertain us…
Hannah and her patron (source)
Readers may have encountered the storm that’s arisen online over the release of a video of Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana in a Quito concert covering Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It is, in fact, execrable. But then, in fairness to Ms. Montana, so are many of the attempts to capture Kurt Cobain’s lightning in a different bottle… as is amply (if not indeed painfully) demonstrated in Flavorwire’s “10 ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ Covers That Are Worse Than Miley’s.”
From the louche stylings of Paul Anka and Michael Bublé, through folk, a cappella, pop, R&B, even classical, to a stunningly-bad rendition by Limp Bizkit, there is video evidence for review. But lest readers click away with bad tastes in their mouths, the good folks at Flavorwire conclude with “Nyevana”‘s delightful “Smells Like Air Pressure.”
(Readers may recall that RD has visited “Smells Like Teen Spirit” before– in what may be the strangest mash-up ever… some songs are just so good that no one can leave them alone… Your correspondent’s own favorite cover: by the always-astounding Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain.)
As we promise to pay our exemplars more respect, we might recall that it was on this date in 1660 that Isaack B. Fubine of the Hague patented macaroni… and thus made possible, on this date in 1947, the launch of the first-ever weekly TV series – “Kraft Television Theater.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.