![[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.
Welcome to my 150th entry! (Because of my 4x4 and 5x5 features, that technically means 157 covers of 148 songs... if I did the math right.¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ )
I admit I had no idea what I was going to do for this one. I have literally over 300 potential covers from which to choose and that list grows faster than I write, often before I can get to something I've had on standby for a while. Some of them I've allocated for specific times already. Some just didn't seem like "150th" quality material. So as I was hunting for which to do, reviewing past blogs and playlists, scratching my head, I realized that there is a cover that my DJ peers and I have been playing a lot over the last year but I never wrote it up because I'd already written about another cover from the same album in January of 2017. This industrial songstress has been mentioned here a few times for her contributions to covers by other artists, but never for one of her own... until now!:
Ayria - Headhunter (Front 242)
The Belgian EBM forerunners, Front 242, released their fourth original album, Front By Front, in 1988, which featured the "V.3" version of Headhunter. Most pressings of the single for the track included the "V.1" version, though sometimes as its b-side. The "V.2" version seems to have been mostly reserved for the video, but even it would also pop up on some pressings of the single.
Singer Jean-Luc DeMeyer once said in an interview that the song was somewhat based on his experience working in the human resources department of an insurance company that he described as using tactics to hire that were both "very polite" and "very cut-throat." DeMeyer says he "wanted to make a parallel between tribal warfare" and those practices.
Despite the band being considered one of the single most influential in the style, and Headhunter specifically considered the best of their hits, the song has not been covered much at all over the years, possibly less than a half dozen times. Notable artists who have covered it include Icon Of Coil in 2003 and Parralox in 2013.
Canadian futurepop/electro industrial artist Jennifer Parkin AKA Ayria is among 31 of her label-mates who participated in the Alfa Matrix Recovery For You tribute compilation, released in December 2016 in celebration of the then 35 years of Front 242's career. Previously she had contributed a cover of In Your Room to the label's 2006 Re:Covered tribute to Depeche Mode. She's also added backing vocals to Information Society's cover of Heffalumps And Woozles and Inertia's cover of Games Without Frontiers, both released in 2016. She also teamed up with Bella Morte to do a parody cover of B-52's Rock Lobster, which they rewrote into Goth Lobster for the 2014 Gothic Cruise.
(Fun personal aside: I can't say I'm responsible for it, but I CAN say that before that cruise in a discussion on Facebook with Steven Archer of Ego Likeness, I did pose the idea of a "Goth Lobster" cover. He was not much a fan of that idea or the B-52's in general. But if, as Archer's friends, Ayria or the members of Bella Morte picked up on that exchange, I wouldn't be surprised. In the end section of the song, they replace the lyrics listing the array of fish with goth/industrial bands and Ego Likeness is one of the first they mention. Entirely possible they came up with the idea on their own, but forgive me if I like to believe I may have planted the tiniest of seeds.)
Ayria's version of Headhunter is a powerful and bouncy update to the Front 242 floor-filler, both dynamic club hits!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Second Sunday Slowly with a recent synthy down-tempo cover of stone-age royalty from a most unusual source who are actually under the rule of similar royalty. Want another hint? It's neither badger, mushroom, nor snake!
[EDIT] March 8 was International Women's Day and I decided to share some blogs relevant highlighting covers done or led by women. I realized in reviewing 150 blogs that the male/female balance is boi-heavy. So, while the cover I intended IS in fact sung by a woman, I'm shifting direction to do what may end up a five to six week focus on female artists and the covers they've done. The Second Sunday Slowly will now be a darkwave/witchhouse downtempo version of the first solo single from someone both "naughty" & "fierce!"
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
My gigs for March are an industrial pajama party and a better reason to wear green! Check my schedule for details and the RSVP link on Facebook! ↼‿ಠ
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 25 - The Alpha Complex - #1 Crush (Garbage)
Feb 18 - Assemblage 23 - Love My Way (The Psychedelic Furs)
Feb 11 - Johnny Hollow - Temple of Love (Sisters of Mercy)
Feb 04 - Rotersand - A Strange Kind Of Love (Peter Murphy)
Jan 28 - Reizstrom - Blister In The Sun(Violent Femmes)
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.
Welcome to my 150th entry! (Because of my 4x4 and 5x5 features, that technically means 157 covers of 148 songs... if I did the math right.¯\(◉‿◉)/¯ )
I admit I had no idea what I was going to do for this one. I have literally over 300 potential covers from which to choose and that list grows faster than I write, often before I can get to something I've had on standby for a while. Some of them I've allocated for specific times already. Some just didn't seem like "150th" quality material. So as I was hunting for which to do, reviewing past blogs and playlists, scratching my head, I realized that there is a cover that my DJ peers and I have been playing a lot over the last year but I never wrote it up because I'd already written about another cover from the same album in January of 2017. This industrial songstress has been mentioned here a few times for her contributions to covers by other artists, but never for one of her own... until now!:
Ayria - Headhunter (Front 242)
The Belgian EBM forerunners, Front 242, released their fourth original album, Front By Front, in 1988, which featured the "V.3" version of Headhunter. Most pressings of the single for the track included the "V.1" version, though sometimes as its b-side. The "V.2" version seems to have been mostly reserved for the video, but even it would also pop up on some pressings of the single.
Singer Jean-Luc DeMeyer once said in an interview that the song was somewhat based on his experience working in the human resources department of an insurance company that he described as using tactics to hire that were both "very polite" and "very cut-throat." DeMeyer says he "wanted to make a parallel between tribal warfare" and those practices.
Despite the band being considered one of the single most influential in the style, and Headhunter specifically considered the best of their hits, the song has not been covered much at all over the years, possibly less than a half dozen times. Notable artists who have covered it include Icon Of Coil in 2003 and Parralox in 2013.
Canadian futurepop/electro industrial artist Jennifer Parkin AKA Ayria is among 31 of her label-mates who participated in the Alfa Matrix Recovery For You tribute compilation, released in December 2016 in celebration of the then 35 years of Front 242's career. Previously she had contributed a cover of In Your Room to the label's 2006 Re:Covered tribute to Depeche Mode. She's also added backing vocals to Information Society's cover of Heffalumps And Woozles and Inertia's cover of Games Without Frontiers, both released in 2016. She also teamed up with Bella Morte to do a parody cover of B-52's Rock Lobster, which they rewrote into Goth Lobster for the 2014 Gothic Cruise.
(Fun personal aside: I can't say I'm responsible for it, but I CAN say that before that cruise in a discussion on Facebook with Steven Archer of Ego Likeness, I did pose the idea of a "Goth Lobster" cover. He was not much a fan of that idea or the B-52's in general. But if, as Archer's friends, Ayria or the members of Bella Morte picked up on that exchange, I wouldn't be surprised. In the end section of the song, they replace the lyrics listing the array of fish with goth/industrial bands and Ego Likeness is one of the first they mention. Entirely possible they came up with the idea on their own, but forgive me if I like to believe I may have planted the tiniest of seeds.)
Ayria's version of Headhunter is a powerful and bouncy update to the Front 242 floor-filler, both dynamic club hits!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
[EDIT] March 8 was International Women's Day and I decided to share some blogs relevant highlighting covers done or led by women. I realized in reviewing 150 blogs that the male/female balance is boi-heavy. So, while the cover I intended IS in fact sung by a woman, I'm shifting direction to do what may end up a five to six week focus on female artists and the covers they've done. The Second Sunday Slowly will now be a darkwave/witchhouse downtempo version of the first solo single from someone both "naughty" & "fierce!"
Feel free to tell me what you think about today's cover! Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
My gigs for March are an industrial pajama party and a better reason to wear green! Check my schedule for details and the RSVP link on Facebook! ↼‿ಠ
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 25 - The Alpha Complex - #1 Crush (Garbage)
Feb 18 - Assemblage 23 - Love My Way (The Psychedelic Furs)
Feb 11 - Johnny Hollow - Temple of Love (Sisters of Mercy)
Feb 04 - Rotersand - A Strange Kind Of Love (Peter Murphy)
Jan 28 - Reizstrom - Blister In The Sun(Violent Femmes)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies