Cover versions you can't work out are good or hackneyed.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The track that prompted me to make this is a Bamboos cover of Ride on Time that's doing the rounds at the moment. I honestly can't make my mind up.

The LP is good and The Bamoos are a great bunch of lads in general, but I don't know, I just don't know.

[Dusty Substance]

First time I've heard this and I like it.

Can totally see why you're in two minds about this cover but it sure works for me. These kinds of covers can very easily turn into overwhelming "WE'RE A PROPER BAND COVERING A POP SONG AREN'T WE QUIRKY" but The Bamboos seem to appreciate the Black Box OG. Kind of reminds of what Mark Ronson did in the late 00s.

I remember being a little wary when someone told me that Tame Impala had covered The Blueboy's Remember Me (one of my absolute favourites) but they give it a unique enough spin to make it their own: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQkRzLSo4-k

[timebug]

I always liked the Damned's version of 'Eloise' which I remember being done by Paul and Barry Ryan (either one of them, or both!)

[DrGreggles]

I always liked the Damned's version of 'Eloise' which I remember being done by Paul and Barry Ryan (either one of them, or both!)

Paul AND Barry?

[famethrowa]

I always liked the Damned's version of 'Eloise' which I remember being done by Paul and Barry Ryan (either one of them, or both!)

I like it, should have been a Dave Vanian solo thing though because there's not much Damned about it.

I quite like Frente doing Bizarre Love Triangle, it brings out the melody well and happened before all that kind of thing became a cliche.

[holyzombiejesus]

I quite like Frente doing Bizarre Love Triangle, it brings out the melody well and happened before all that kind of thing became a cliche.

Fellow Aussies Even As We Speak did it earlier (and better, IMO)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XH1vEZ_blo

It's a shame that John Lewis and stuff like that ruined the downbeat acoustic cover as there were a few decent examples before they just felt hackneyed. I really like Taken By Trees' version of Sweet Child O'Mine and think Victoria Bergsman has a really nice voice, but I can't imagine ever putting it on again.

[Dr Rock]

The Damned have done loads of great covers.

[DrGreggles]

The Damned have done loads of great covers.

They also did Alone Again Or...

[crankshaft]

The track that prompted me to make this is a Bamboos cover of Ride on Time that's doing the rounds at the moment. I honestly can't make my mind up.

The LP is good and The Bamoos are a great bunch of lads in general, but I don't know, I just don't know.

It's bollocks, a sub-Mark Ronson in 2007 attempt to gentrify what is a gloriously catchy and disrespectful piece of Italo house pop. The fact they give the "difficult" vocal sample to the saxes tells you all you need to know.

It's exactly the same as all the other post-Live Lounge cover versions that either turn dancefloor bangers into mawkish mope-a-thons or try and make fabulously throwaway pop singles "canonical" by getting humans with "chops" who know about "real music" to play them. Yes, I have a bee in my bonnet about this.

Hope this helps.

[Brundle-Fly]

The Damned have done loads of great covers.

and Vanian is really underrated as a singer.

[Chicory]

It's bollocks, a sub-Mark Ronson in 2007 attempt to gentrify what is a gloriously catchy and disrespectful piece of Italo house pop. The fact they give the "difficult" vocal sample to the saxes tells you all you need to know.

It's exactly the same as all the other post-Live Lounge cover versions that either turn dancefloor bangers into mawkish mope-a-thons or try and make fabulously throwaway pop singles "canonical" by getting humans with "chops" who know about "real music" to play them. Yes, I have a bee in my bonnet about this.

Hope this helps.

Absolutely spot on. I can't bring myself to actually hate them because I think they're good sorts but Travis have a lot to answer for with their 1999 cover of 'Baby One More Time'. I think it was done in good faith and with a genuine fondness for the sheer pop craft of the original but it unleashed an neverending stream of loose, anodyne, post ironic, Jo Whiley approved bum gravy that dominated pop culture all the way through the Noughties, aided and abetted by Nouvelle Vague, John Lewis and bank advert after coke dusted bank advert. 

I'd like to think we've turned a corner with all that bollocks but I'm bracing myself for the inevitable Yuletide cuddly heartbroken guinea pig soundtracked by a breathy, pixie voiced rendition of Wire's 'Outdoor Miner'.

[Captain Z]

Both those posts beat me to it. Would sound at home in a 2008 DFS advert.

[Goldentony]

Can never work out what's going on with the Flamin' Groovies covers of Please Please Me, Werewolves Of London and It Won't Be Wrong because every time I hear them I love em(AND IT WONT BE WROOOONG) but they're all basically note for note Gus Van Sant levels of similar

[Clatty McCutcheon]

I heard Elton John and yer man from Years and Years' duet version of 'It's a Sin' on the radio earlier ('Uh-school they-tut-ma-hutta-beh...')

Elton seems to have made a decisive and seemingly irreversible move to the 'club singer' vocal register that he employed so devastatingly on his reimagining of 'I'm Still Standing'.

[non capisco]

The track that prompted me to make this is a Bamboos cover of Ride on Time that's doing the rounds at the moment. I honestly can't make my mind up.

The LP is good and The Bamoos are a great bunch of lads in general, but I don't know, I just don't know.

Load of polite joyless shit.

Kind of reminds of what Mark Ronson did in the late 00s.

Exactly. Awful.

[famethrowa]

It's bollocks, a sub-Mark Ronson

Made me think of this Kylie version of Locomotion from 2012:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja0pBuK7CW4

Kyle's original is a iconic piece of cheese, sure, but this Winehouse/Ronson ripoff offends me way more. Making me get that upset about a bit of pop fluff.

[Chriddof]

Jesus christ, that version of Ride On Time is piss weak. No oomph of any kind to it.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Jesus christ, that version of Ride On Time is piss weak. No oomph of any kind to it.

Given the amount of piss weak dance covers on the totp reruns (the latest being a cover of Patrice Rushen's Forget me Not's) it's quite funny to see a band do the opposite and make a decades-old dance track sound thinner with real musicians.

[holyzombiejesus]

I've only just heard this cover of My Bloody Valentine's When You Sleep and I predict that most people on here will fucking hate it, but I think I think it's good. Not 100% sure but there's something really lovely about it, even if the 'take a noisy song and make it folksy' thing is hackneyed as fuck.

https://youtu.be/I35doi5pjzg

[Neomod]

I've only just heard this cover of My Bloody Valentine's When You Sleep and I predict that most people on here will fucking hate it, but I think I think it's good.

It's charming and guileless. Lovely stuff.

[phantom_power]

This cover of Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jljxYyR5Tw

Charmingly ramshackle or what?

[thundarrshirt]

Norwegian poptimism stalwart Annie read this thread, covered "Just Like Honey", and I, too, cannot decide if this glistening synth take actually works well with those lyrics, or is big toilet

I've only just heard this cover of My Bloody Valentine's When You Sleep and I predict that most people on here will fucking hate it, but I think I think it's good. Not 100% sure but there's something really lovely about it, even if the 'take a noisy song and make it folksy' thing is hackneyed as fuck.

https://youtu.be/I35doi5pjzg

Context partially innit? This is sufferably sweet; a Live Lounge cover or YouTuber aspiring to be a Live Lounger cover-er doing the same would be insufferable

[Icehaven]

I really like the actual song Team by Lorde but not how it's been done, I don't like her voice, or the arrangement and the production etc. (although there's an ''80s mix'' of it on YT which I think is still Lorde which is pretty good, it's just her style of singing still isn't really my thing), so I spent a while digging up covers of it. Failed to find any amazing ones but there's a few rock-ish ones which are OK for me but I daresay would fall squarely into the hackneyed (or just plain awful) category for a lot of people. I think I'm at a stage in my appreciation of music where I can hear something and know it's fundamentally not good but still admit to myself that I like it. Otherwise known as old.

[jobotic]

I posted Laura Cantrell's version on New Order's Love Vigilantes ae few months back and the only responses were derision.

In general I agree with the arsey posts in this thread though.

[holyzombiejesus]

It's charming and guileless. Lovely stuff.

Yeah, I've played it lots today and am now firmly in the 'good' camp. Think I'm actually in the 'fucking gorgeous' camp; I think the father/ daughter thing makes it even more touching and it manages to do that thing which all good covers should, which is to make you look at the original in a new light.

[Bongo_Christ]

Well this thread led me to discover that Black Box themselves did a "'79 Special" disco remix of Ride On Time a few years ago, as a 30th anniversary cash-in celebration, and it's pretty bangin' - keeps the energy of the original, but sounds like they got Earth Wind & Fire to play it for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKQm3sWSIsw

[popcorn]

Yeah I'm not enjoying this Ride on Time cover either, though I'm such a fan of the original I'm probably an impossible audience. Can't help but feel it would have been more interesting if they'd used the original vocal sample again, to create more contrast.

[SpiderChrist]

Same here, but I hated the original Ride On Time (mostly due to Heather Small's foghorn) - this disco version sounded alright until the vocals came in.

[Bongo_Christ]

Yeah I'm not enjoying this Ride on Time cover either, though I'm such a fan of the original I'm probably an impossible audience. Can't help but feel it would have been more interesting if they'd used the original vocal sample again, to create more contrast.

Same here, but I hated the original Ride On Time (mostly due to Heather Small's foghorn) - this disco version sounded alright until the vocals came in.

If you're talking about the link I just put up, that *IS* the original sample, they got the rights to it a few years ago.

Compare - this spot is the most noticeable difference:
Love Sensation: https://youtu.be/j38yypPLWzE?t=108
Ride On Time '79 remix: https://youtu.be/GKQm3sWSIsw?t=150
Ride On Time Heather Small version: https://youtu.be/M0quXl_od3g?t=116

[popcorn]

Aye, I was talking about the new cover version in the OP, which has original vocals.

Am I right in thinking the version of Ride on Time on Spotify has the original sample?