Rock Swings – Paul Anka & The Day After Yesterday – Rick Springfield: Two old favorites take their best shots at cover albums. One in the vein of Pat Boone, the other in the great tradition of David Bowie’s Pin-ups. First is Paul Anka’s re-arrangements of pop and rock standards from the last 25 years with a large band. Think Brian Setzer Orchestra for the sound and style. And of course, he provides the world with yet another version of “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Well, at least you can understand the lyrics when he’s singing. Still, this type of rethinking with songs has been done to death but Paul Anka succeeds where others would just languish in kitsch. I think it’s his past career of performing and writing hit pop songs for others unlike the Britney Spears of his day. The album really works when he covers much older songs such as Spandau Ballet’s “True,” Van Halen’s “Jump” (seriously) and Billy Idol’s “Eyes without a Face.” It feels pretty stretched with more recent hits from the 90s: “Black Hole Sun” just doesn’t connect and “Tears in Heaven” fails because it’s a crappy song to begin with.
Meanwhile, Rick Springfield released a collection of songs: he liked, was influenced by, or by his own confession, wished he wrote. He unfortunately commits two major sins with his cover album. He includes one of his own new songs and all the arrangements aren’t very different from the original hits. I was curious to hear what Rick’s take was on “I’m not in Love” versus the Tori Amos version. Instead it comes off like 10cc with Rick’s vocals. On the upside, it’s not a disappointing karoke collection. There are a couple surprises: a duet of “Broken Wings” with Richard Page (the lead singer of Mr. Mister) and the Church’s “Under the Milky Way” which is a personal favorite of mine. This collection isn’t perfect yet it certainly fares better than Annie Lennox’s Medusa.
Both albums are enjoyable without being smarmy. They’re sincere in different ways. Definitely staples for fans of Coverville. As for the average music listener? Only if he or she are fans of these artists.
Similarities (only in style):
Paul Anka: Brian Setzer Orchestra.
Rick Springfield: Angie Aparo.
Recommendation: Only buy if you love collecting covers or you’re a completist for these artists.
Waiting for the Sirens’ Call – New Order: I have great memories of these guys in college despite their rather unimpressive live show. Then they didTechnique which really sucked and followed it up with Republic which had only two memorable songs. By the time Get Ready arrived, I expressed zero interest. Then I heard “Krafty” on musicchoice.com at the coffee shop, it was quite a strong single, somewhat reminiscient of “Regret.” But I had been burned by them before since “Regret” was the lead single to Republic. Thanks to the guys at Cheapo, they had a copy of this and New Order seems to have regained their mojo on what made them likable because the likable songs don’t stop at the first single. They keep up the momentum with “Waiting for the Siren’s Call,” “Jetstream” and the danceable “Guilt is a Useless Emotion.” It’s not quite low-life but they’re forgiven for this release and I’m at least open to their next release should they do one more often than every eight years.
Similarities: Gus Gus, Garbage, Information Society, Rooney.
Recommendation: Worth Buying.
Sorry Steve, but that Paul Anka album (or the two songs that I’ve heard from it) doesn’t work for me. It’s like listening to some unfunny comedian pretending to be a stereotypical lounge act in Las Vegas while belting out tunes from the 80’s and 90’s. Sad, sad, sad.