Friday, April 13, 2012

Covers: 7 Nation Army

Covers is a new series of posts looking at a song and the covers it produces. The good, the bad, the weird...all will be looked at.

I'm not sure why I'm not a bigger fan of the White Stripes. I like blues. I like the modern take on blues. And I'm a sucker for a showman with talent. I mean, I do enjoy most of the stuff I hear, so I guess it's more of a "musical saturation," theory. While I enjoy finding new music, and will never not explore it, we all have bands that we miss or skip for whatever reason, and decide never to go back - even when we know we're missing out.

The brain is a funny thing.

Regardless of my feelings, I do appreciate their ability and talent. And I do like the song 7 Nation Army. Sufficiently strange enough to stick out on the banal, mass produced pop songs on the radio airwaves, 7NA always seemed to be that song that mixed things up...


It's immediately recognizable, driving riff, which sounds like a bass (but who would be playing it in a 2 person rock band?) is actually not a bass at all. Given tons of critical acclaim, the song is easily one of the most recognizable White Stripes song out there.

And yet, I don't think it's the best version of the song.

Now, I realize that is a dangerous thing to say. Cover songs should never be better than the original material because (at least in my thinking) original creation is more difficult. So for a cover song to be better, that has to be saying something.

(And I also realize that all of this, at the end of the day, has to deal with personal opinion. Best of lists, and awards are only based on the whim of people. There simply can never be something considered the Best of anything, because, as I'm sure you are aware, there will always be someone out there on the other side of the opinion. And that person is never wrong. Opinion can't be wrong. So at the end of the day, this is just my take. But of course, I'm right.)

But seriously, this cover of 7 Nation Army is by Nostalgia 77, featuring Alice Russell is awesome...


To me, both Nostalgia 77 and Alice Russell took this song and delivered something completely different than what The White Stripes did...something more soulful, meaningful and passionate.

But there of course are other versions of this song...to narrow them down I've created some categories (all from research on Youtube:

Weirdest
Fewest views
Artist you would never in a million years think they would do it
Countrified
Acoustic

So without further adieu...

Countrified: The Oakridge Boys


Artist you would never in a million years think they would do it :Kelly Clarkson


Fewest Views: Squirrel Tooth Alice


Weirdest: Afra and Incredible Beatbox Band


Acoustic


And then just a few more, because I couldn't classify them but I thought they sounded kinda cool...

Singer/Songwriter: Kate Nash


Soulful: Ben L'Oncle


And finally one more - and I dare you to listen to the whole thing, all the way through (I couldn't):

Oh Oh Oh!!




2 comments:

gdr said...

White Stripes... the Parks & Recreation of my music world. Love it every time I hear them, but for whatever reason haven't been loyal to them and bought anything.

Alice Russell... awesome version

Clarkson... how could you say never in a million years? Someone probably offered her a cheeseburger and fries to sing it.

Gonged Squirrel Tooth Alice and the dude with the tank top on but I did make it through Oh Oh Oh.

Goose said...

Please feel free to suggest any songs...