![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
This year we've seen the loss of three extraordinary musical artists; men who, without question, defined their masculinity and gender on their own terms, influencing and inspiring so many who struggle with such issues themselves. In January, we lost David Bowie. (Coincidentally I was already writing a piece on one of his covers at the time.) In April, we lost Prince. (I have not yet done a feature on him, despite many great covers, because legitimate accessibility to much of his music online is so severely restricted.) And just two weeks ago we lost Peter Burns of Dead or Alive.
Burns had actually done covers of both Bowie & Prince, along with several others over his career, and we'll get to one of them soon, I promise. However, of Burns music, there appears to be only a few covers, and all seem to be of only one of his songs:
Simi Nah - You Spin Me Round [Like A Record] (Dead or Alive)
Dead Or Alive, the English Hi-NRG/synthpop/dance sensation led by Pete Burns, released their second album, Youthquake in May 1985, but its first single was put out in early November of the prior year. You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) , celebrating 32 years yesterday, became the band's most prevalent and widely recognized track.
Burns, who launched his career with more post-punk/proto-goth/new wave fare in his bands Mystery Girls and Nightmares In Wax, had stated that his inspirations for the single came from two specific sources: I Wanted Your Love by Luther Vandross and See You 'Round Like A Record by Little Nell (of Rocky Horror fame.) Additionally the string arrangements for the track drew heavily from Richard Wagner's classic operatic piece, Ride of the Valkyries.
The success of the track is somewhat of an astonishment considering reports that their own record company had such a low opinion of the song that the band had to personally invest in its recording and that the band was in constant conflict with the production team.
The song has since been on hundreds of compilations, several TV and film soundtracks, and received countless hours of airplay in clubs and on radio. It's been covered at least a dozen times by artists such as Dope, No Comment, Uranium 235, and Blaqk Audio (released in tribute just last week.) However, of all these covers, this one is possibly the most unique.
Simi Nah is a French-born, Belgium-based artist who operates under her own name as a dark electro/EBM duo with her partner, Kenny (aka KGB.) In 2014, Simi Nah released Be My Guest, an exceptional covers album done in collaboration with a number of "guest" vocalists. Among artists covered: Visage, Cabaret Voltaire, Suicide, and Dead Or Alive. Their version of You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) features vocals by Dirk Ivens of The Klinik. Nah has stated that they really worked to detach themselves from the original and the result is something that sounds close in style to the early works of Ministry or My Life w/ the Thrill Kill Kult. Defiantly divergent from the original, they only recite the song's titular line as a kind of bridge leading to its denouement instead of as a chorus-break throughout the whole. It's a truly cutting-edge dark industrial interpretation that now stands as one of many tributes to the impact made by Pete Burns and Dead or Alive.
The Cover:
The Original:
(due to issues of youtube restriction, for international readers I'm including a second source for the original when possible, though this one is not the actual "original" but one of many single remixes.)
Next week:
The plan is to have a Second Sunday Slowly feature with a post-election down-tempo cover. Hopefully the world will not fall into such deep despair and chaos that the internet ceases to exist. I guess we'll see. Please vote responsibly.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
Upcoming dates for when I'm spinning in clubs can be found on my schedule so feel free to check for details anytime. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Oct 30 - Autopsie D'Une Ombre - Little 15 (Depeche Mode)
Oct 23 - Marilyn Manson - This Is Halloween (Danny Elfman/The Citizens of Halloween Town)
Oct 16 - Lydia Lunch - Spooky (Mike Sharpe)
Oct 09 - Blutengel - Cry Little Sister (Gerard McMann)
Oct 02 - goJA moon ROCKAH! - Bloodletting [The Vampire Song] (Concrete Blonde)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
This year we've seen the loss of three extraordinary musical artists; men who, without question, defined their masculinity and gender on their own terms, influencing and inspiring so many who struggle with such issues themselves. In January, we lost David Bowie. (Coincidentally I was already writing a piece on one of his covers at the time.) In April, we lost Prince. (I have not yet done a feature on him, despite many great covers, because legitimate accessibility to much of his music online is so severely restricted.) And just two weeks ago we lost Peter Burns of Dead or Alive.
Burns had actually done covers of both Bowie & Prince, along with several others over his career, and we'll get to one of them soon, I promise. However, of Burns music, there appears to be only a few covers, and all seem to be of only one of his songs:
Simi Nah - You Spin Me Round [Like A Record] (Dead or Alive)
Dead Or Alive, the English Hi-NRG/synthpop/dance sensation led by Pete Burns, released their second album, Youthquake in May 1985, but its first single was put out in early November of the prior year. You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) , celebrating 32 years yesterday, became the band's most prevalent and widely recognized track.
Burns, who launched his career with more post-punk/proto-goth/new wave fare in his bands Mystery Girls and Nightmares In Wax, had stated that his inspirations for the single came from two specific sources: I Wanted Your Love by Luther Vandross and See You 'Round Like A Record by Little Nell (of Rocky Horror fame.) Additionally the string arrangements for the track drew heavily from Richard Wagner's classic operatic piece, Ride of the Valkyries.
The success of the track is somewhat of an astonishment considering reports that their own record company had such a low opinion of the song that the band had to personally invest in its recording and that the band was in constant conflict with the production team.
The song has since been on hundreds of compilations, several TV and film soundtracks, and received countless hours of airplay in clubs and on radio. It's been covered at least a dozen times by artists such as Dope, No Comment, Uranium 235, and Blaqk Audio (released in tribute just last week.) However, of all these covers, this one is possibly the most unique.
Simi Nah is a French-born, Belgium-based artist who operates under her own name as a dark electro/EBM duo with her partner, Kenny (aka KGB.) In 2014, Simi Nah released Be My Guest, an exceptional covers album done in collaboration with a number of "guest" vocalists. Among artists covered: Visage, Cabaret Voltaire, Suicide, and Dead Or Alive. Their version of You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) features vocals by Dirk Ivens of The Klinik. Nah has stated that they really worked to detach themselves from the original and the result is something that sounds close in style to the early works of Ministry or My Life w/ the Thrill Kill Kult. Defiantly divergent from the original, they only recite the song's titular line as a kind of bridge leading to its denouement instead of as a chorus-break throughout the whole. It's a truly cutting-edge dark industrial interpretation that now stands as one of many tributes to the impact made by Pete Burns and Dead or Alive.
The Cover:
The Original:
(due to issues of youtube restriction, for international readers I'm including a second source for the original when possible, though this one is not the actual "original" but one of many single remixes.)
Next week:
The plan is to have a Second Sunday Slowly feature with a post-election down-tempo cover. Hopefully the world will not fall into such deep despair and chaos that the internet ceases to exist. I guess we'll see. Please vote responsibly.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
Upcoming dates for when I'm spinning in clubs can be found on my schedule so feel free to check for details anytime. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Oct 30 - Autopsie D'Une Ombre - Little 15 (Depeche Mode)
Oct 23 - Marilyn Manson - This Is Halloween (Danny Elfman/The Citizens of Halloween Town)
Oct 16 - Lydia Lunch - Spooky (Mike Sharpe)
Oct 09 - Blutengel - Cry Little Sister (Gerard McMann)
Oct 02 - goJA moon ROCKAH! - Bloodletting [The Vampire Song] (Concrete Blonde)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies