A deadline looms, so here for your aural delectation are some of my favourite cover versions….

by Pseud O'Nym

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I do not own the copyright pertaining to any of the music, and no infringement is intended.

(Just in case you were thinking that I did.)

As the title explains, I’m taking the lazy way out again this week. Although it was disheartening for a cookery recipe I put up a couple of weeks ago to get well above my average number of post views.

NB – If you like the original and are worried that hearing a cover version will besmirch your enjoyment of it evermore, then don’t. Which is kind of obvious really, but still. But if you love any of the the originals, and want to hear them recreated in a different style, then you’re in for an eargasm. (Which is a word I thought I’d never use and won’t again.)

So we begin with a cover of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance’ performed by twin sisters Camille and Kennerly on harps.

Next up the Sabres of Paradise classic ‘Smokebelch II’ performed by Maxence Cyrin on a piano. Simply beautiful, this one.

Staying with the dance theme, here’s Daft Punks ‘Around The World’ given a latin makeover by Señor Coconut. Bizarre yet brilliant.

Find Aphex Twin’s status as some kind of musical wunderkid baffling? Does it all sound like a gunfight in an underground car park, constant beeps and loud noises? Here’s Phillip Glass with his interpretation of ‘Icct Hedral’. Glorious violin action!

Being a teenager at the time when acid house was in the middle of it’s drug fuelled party, I loved 808 States’ ‘Pacific 202’. So imagine my joy upon hearing this live at the Royal Festival Hall. It’s acid house, but done by a brass band. Perfection. A ‘Desert Island Disc’ for me, this one. Sort of. This version is from the second release of the epic ‘Acid Brass’ album and is a tad slower than the one on the first. Did you need to know that? No. But I am a trainspotter when it comes to music I love and that just proved it.

One of my many contentions is that the measure of how good a song is, is how well it lends itself to a brass band interpretation. As I write this, and as if to underline the point, the neighbores have inflicted the noise of a thumping bassline, some beats and what sounds like a woman being violently assaulted. My ears know how she feels.

Here’s something altogether much better, ‘You Only Live Twice’ performed by Ray Davies and the Button Down Brass.

Here’s Garbages’ ‘Only Happy When It Rains’ by Richard Cheese. A cover far and away superior to the original, methinks. You may not.

A male choir performing New Orders ‘Blue Monday’? Okay then!

The law against promoting homosexuality in Russia isn’t strictly enforced, as this police choir show, whilst performing Daft Punks’ ‘Get Lucky’. (It isn’t your computer. The sound quality improves after 10 seconds.)

Much as I loathe U2, this version of ‘With or Without You’ by the Scala female choir, is ace

And we end on some disco magic, courtesy of Inner Life and their take on Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrells”Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.

Next week I might inflict upon you my favourite show tunes and brass band covers. You lucky people!