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!!