Space were a wonderfully eccentric band, according to Wikipedia they were once described as “Black Grape gone flamenco and sung by a man who can’t decide between cartoon Mexican, Ray Davies and Cypress Hill”. Despite this they were fairly successful, having a few big hits in the 90s, but sadly they seem to be largely forgotten these days. This cover definitely deserves to be remembered. Space – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
A couple of great covers by modern rock groups today. First “Word Up!”, one of the funkiest songs around. The original came out in 1986, but still sounds incredibly fresh today. Korn gave it their own touch on their Greatest Hits: Volume 1. Korn – Word Up!
Next is Placebo’s great cover of “Daddy Cool” by Boney M. This is from the special edition of Sleeping With Ghosts, which came with a whole bonus disc of Placebo cover versions. Placebo – Daddy Cool
Now this is a cover I have been trying to track down ever since I heard about it. Cherry Ghost are one of my favourite bands and I can’t wait for their new album. This was part of BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, where bands often do interesting covers. There’s even a few official compilation albums of them, but this doesn’t appear on any of them, which is a pity.
And now for another in my irregular series of cover version posts. This time featuring a song that’s very close to my heart: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” by Vampire Weekend.
I bought Vampire Weekend’s album for maybe the most uncool reason possible: it was recommended on Countdown. Yes, the daytime game show, which I was watching at my grandparents’.
Actually that’s not strictly true. I had heard it before when a friend played it to me, and I absolutely loved it. But then much alcohol was consumed and I entirely forgot about this wonderful album. So a few months later when Jeff Stelling out of the blue mentioned it on Countdown, it came back to me. I grabbed it as soon as possible. It was only then I realised that one of their tracks (“A-Punk”) was the theme to the excellent Inbetweeners.
I genuinely think every track on the album is great, and it’s not very often I feel that way. But “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” is a particular favourite, partly because the lyrics remind me of a certain girl who I was very close to. That all ended quite bitterly, but of the songs reminding me of her, this one somehow always makes me feel positive. And of course it’s great musically too.
The first cover is a slightly unusual choice, since it ditches the lyrics I love so much entirely. Vampire Weekend have obviously been greatly inspired by African and African-influenced music, and this takes that one step further by replacing the lyrics with African chanting. I’m not sure if this can strictly be called a cover version, but it is absolutely great and extremely cheerful.
The Very Best (Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit) – Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa:
So I’ve wanted to post some cover versions for a while, they’re a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. And I’ve really been inspired by several other sites, such as:
Too much coffee and not enough sleep caused me to make this… erm… thing. I blame Virgin Radio (as it was called back then) for playing “In The Morning” so much that it warped my brain. And of course rathergood.com for the pre-packaged insanity that is La La La Oo-hoo-hoo
Well I spent some time messing around in Ableton Live when I really should have been working, and now exams are over decided to finish something up and post it. So it’s pretty short, the ending really sucks, and it clearly only works at all through blind luck because all my attempts to produce anything else have failed miserably. But I’m quite proud of it all the same. Enjoy. (And please don’t sue me.)
So time for something a little different. Here’s a few of my favourite mashups from my collection (although I’ve barely scratched the surface with listening to them yet).
This little media player thing is nifty, but took me forever to get working, mainly on account of WordPress constantly mangling/mongling its code.