...by showing them how to cover a song. After Gnarls Barkley sucks all the life out of their classic "Gone Daddy Gone," the Femmes strike back by injecting pathos into Barkley's "Crazy." (Warning: MySpace!)
Yes, this is a theme: when you cover a song, you have to put your own stamp on it. Otherwise you're a hack.
[via BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow, who, sadly, likes the Barkley cover of "Gone Daddy Gone."]
5 comments:
You completely and utterly miss the point of mash ups.
Behold, and observe... "Yoshimi Battles The Hip-Hop Robots"
http://www.kleptones.com/pages/yhh.html
A cover is not a mash-up.
The original Gnarls Barkley release was. Infact DJ Danger Mouse a member of the group originally was known for mashups and his claim to fame was The Grey Album a mashup of the Beatle's White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album which was the definition of Illegal Art.
Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it sucks. Get over yourself.
Barkley's version of "Gone Daddy Gone" is a straight up cover. (Even Wikipedia thinks so.) It's not a mashed up sample of the Violent Femmes' version. Regardless, it's uninventive, adding nothing to the original's rhythm or tempo, flattening its emotion, removing the hyperkineticism and replacing it with clinical precision. It is the least energetic release Gnarls Barkley has ever made.
In contrast, the Violent Femmes take Barkley's song and truly make it their own--it is far removed from the original, and bears their unmistakable stamp. That's the difference between cover artistry and cover hackery.
I especially like Bobby's argument where because Danger Mouse had previously done mashups, therefore anything else he has done is a mashup.
Take that jim anderson. Take that.
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