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seedarklyxeroWelcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Gender-flipped casting in entertainment media seems like a hugely contentious issue these days. But it is NOTHING NEW. Seriously, the amount of songs done originally by someone of one gender and covered by someone of another is... well, ridiculous to consider, and should render any thought of such swapping in other forms of media fairly commonplace and inoffensive by now. At least, ideally. In the world of music, it is often celebrated for having, at times, beautiful and amazing affects. So with that tangential thought in mind...:
Dust Heaven - Dark (Gary Numan)
In the early 90's Gary Numan had been struggling professionally and financially, which he felt had influenced poor results in his work artistically. After taking some time away from his music and coming back to write music for pleasure instead, he found his imagination taking his music to even darker places than before, many of those places orbiting closely to theology. Sacrifice was the next effort he was truly happy with, however he had received numerous complaints for its religious imagery. Rather than give up on the inspiration, he developed a thesis that God and the Devil were the same being, a form of deific duality. He'd originally intended the concept to be a book, but found it so well suited to lyrics that by the time he'd written his third song around the concept, he'd realized that it would be the basis of an entire album. He released his sixteenth album, Exile, in October 1997 in the U.K. and then four months later in the U.S.. In Dark, the duality is expressed through a resistance to both darkness and light. This song, never released as a single, was included in the soundtrack of the 1998 science fiction suspense film, Dark City. (Interesting aside: the central villains of the film were based in part on the character of Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show.)
Dust Heaven, a multi-lingual industrial rock duo from the Ukraine, unveiled their cover of Dark last Halloween as the first in a line of tracks meant for their tribute project, Stolen Treasures. Other covers they've revealed for the project include Shout, from Tears For Fears & Beyond My Control by Mylene Farmer.
Earlier this year, the cover of Dark was included on the first volume of compilations from the Electrozombies music blog, Undead And Open-Minded.
Helming all instrumentation, Alex Grechanik keeps the structure of the track but makes it sound fuller and more resonant. Valeria Finikopulo sings with a beautifully accented, feminine, and enchanting voice that separates her at once from the gruff mechanical sound of Numan's, tempering the tone from an expression of grievance to one of lament.
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
We are in the midst of #ModeMay. And luckily there are five Sundays this month so I'll present Fifth Sunday a La Mode... this time with a twist!
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
I spin next Sunday in Cambridge. If you are near enough to join check my schedule for details. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
May 15 - Soft Cell - Tainted Love (Gloria Jones)
May 08 - Sonik Foundry - Mama (Genesis)
May 01 - 9th Evolution - Bela Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus)
Apr 24 - Sebastian Komor - Game Of Thrones Theme(Ramin Djawadi)
Apr 17 - Snake River Conspiracy - Love Song (The Cure)
Apr 10 - PRIMA PRIMO - Cornflake Girl (Tori Amos)
Directory of All DisCOVERies
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Gender-flipped casting in entertainment media seems like a hugely contentious issue these days. But it is NOTHING NEW. Seriously, the amount of songs done originally by someone of one gender and covered by someone of another is... well, ridiculous to consider, and should render any thought of such swapping in other forms of media fairly commonplace and inoffensive by now. At least, ideally. In the world of music, it is often celebrated for having, at times, beautiful and amazing affects. So with that tangential thought in mind...:
Dust Heaven - Dark (Gary Numan)
In the early 90's Gary Numan had been struggling professionally and financially, which he felt had influenced poor results in his work artistically. After taking some time away from his music and coming back to write music for pleasure instead, he found his imagination taking his music to even darker places than before, many of those places orbiting closely to theology. Sacrifice was the next effort he was truly happy with, however he had received numerous complaints for its religious imagery. Rather than give up on the inspiration, he developed a thesis that God and the Devil were the same being, a form of deific duality. He'd originally intended the concept to be a book, but found it so well suited to lyrics that by the time he'd written his third song around the concept, he'd realized that it would be the basis of an entire album. He released his sixteenth album, Exile, in October 1997 in the U.K. and then four months later in the U.S.. In Dark, the duality is expressed through a resistance to both darkness and light. This song, never released as a single, was included in the soundtrack of the 1998 science fiction suspense film, Dark City. (Interesting aside: the central villains of the film were based in part on the character of Riff Raff from Rocky Horror Picture Show.)
Dust Heaven, a multi-lingual industrial rock duo from the Ukraine, unveiled their cover of Dark last Halloween as the first in a line of tracks meant for their tribute project, Stolen Treasures. Other covers they've revealed for the project include Shout, from Tears For Fears & Beyond My Control by Mylene Farmer.
Earlier this year, the cover of Dark was included on the first volume of compilations from the Electrozombies music blog, Undead And Open-Minded.
Helming all instrumentation, Alex Grechanik keeps the structure of the track but makes it sound fuller and more resonant. Valeria Finikopulo sings with a beautifully accented, feminine, and enchanting voice that separates her at once from the gruff mechanical sound of Numan's, tempering the tone from an expression of grievance to one of lament.
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
We are in the midst of #ModeMay. And luckily there are five Sundays this month so I'll present Fifth Sunday a La Mode... this time with a twist!
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
I spin next Sunday in Cambridge. If you are near enough to join check my schedule for details. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
May 15 - Soft Cell - Tainted Love (Gloria Jones)
May 08 - Sonik Foundry - Mama (Genesis)
May 01 - 9th Evolution - Bela Lugosi's Dead (Bauhaus)
Apr 24 - Sebastian Komor - Game Of Thrones Theme(Ramin Djawadi)
Apr 17 - Snake River Conspiracy - Love Song (The Cure)
Apr 10 - PRIMA PRIMO - Cornflake Girl (Tori Amos)
Directory of All DisCOVERies