I forget where I found this, but it was billed as the worst ever cover song. Sadly, I looked at the title and saw it was a cover of one of my favorite Sugar songs, "If I Can't Change Your Mind." What sucks even more is that the covering band is San Francisco's own Train. I know terrible bands can come from any part of the world, I'm just embarrassed because I love my city. I was gonna post a picture of Train up here, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Ew.
The original is quick and lively despite the unhappy lyrical subject matter, it's almost as if the song can barely keep up with itself. Bob Mould's voice has a sort of glimmer of hope to it, but he mostly sounds resigned to the fact that things are the way they are and it's not gonna change.
Train's version of IICCYM certainly lives up to the worst cover song billing. Well, if it's not the worst, it's pretty goddamn close. First of all, they cut the tempo in half which really drags it out. Secondly, the guy's voice is so whiny and emo, it's almost like a falsetto. WTF is that all about? It sounds so overproduced and soulless, like it should reside on the soundtrack to the latest blockbuster chick flick starring...fuck, I dunno who's in these movies...umm, Meg Ryan? Sarah Jessica Parker? Well, whatever, it's absolute crap. The only good thing about it is that Mould is getting royalties from all the GAP office casual clone chicks who are buying this shit.
Compare and contrast:
Sugar > If I Can't Change Your Mind
Train > If I Can't Change Your Mind
Bonus:
Sugar > If I Can't Change Your Mind (live BBC version)(because I think this is even better than the original)
5 comments:
Both shite.
Sorry but it's true.
As for whether it's the worst cover ever, I very much doubt it.
Have you heard Mylo's cover of Sweet Child O' Mine? I can't work out whether it's genius or straight from hell. I'm suspecting it falls into the latter category in which case it makes that track by Train look positively god-like.
I'm not precious about Sugar's version, but I like it, and indeed, I KNEW Train would be SHIT. Oh god. I know what they look like too. I remember seeing their big ugly mugs staring out at me from posters in tons of shops earlier in the year when their stupid album was probably released.
"GAP office casual clone chicks" SO reminds me of the audience who were there for the band that opened up for Asobi Seksu recently. It was the most terrible pairing of support and headlining bands EVER. I don't even want to type their name out cos I don't want them to get internet hits. They were SO SO SHIT. And what was worse is that they seemed to REALLY think they were hot shit and were really FEELIN' it. And so was nearly all the audience. It was music for people who don't actually like music at all. Ugh.
Oh noooooooo! It's in my last.fm now that I was listening to bloody TRAIN. I had the same thing happen last week when I was trying to find the most ridiculous song ever from the most ridiculous opener I've ever seen for Morrissey - a guy called Damien Dempsey - so Martin and I could resume singing ridulous Irish-accented lyrics to each other. I don't actually listen to Damien Dempsey!!
I'll take a screenshot and post it and then you'll be the laughing stock of all your peers!
It was music for people who don't actually like music at all.
Perfectly illustrated.
I listened to the Mylo track. It's not great, but it's sorta amusing. Train is easily worse.
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