DJ Xero, Operative of SeeDarkly™ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seedarklyxero) wrote2018-06-24 10:00 am
seedarklyxero) wrote2018-06-24 10:00 am
SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies: Shot Down
Welcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
We wrap up our June focus on songs either originally by or covered by artists in the LGBTQ+ community with a selection that breaks a couple of my personal, albeit arbitrary, rules set for the blog: downtempo covers are usually reserved for the second Sunday of the month and the covers here are typically something generally "club" and/or "dance" worthy. On that latter point it's fair to say not all goth music fits that standard, subjective as it might be to individual taste.
This month has offered me an opportunity to discover the music of quite a few artists of whom I had heard but to whom I had not given time to listen. Though I could have gone in a lot of directions, what I learned about what I found, combined with the motivation to make sure a least one entry for the month was specifically trans-inclusive, convinced me today's featured artist and this neoclassical gothic darkwave cover was the right choice.:
Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) (Cher)
In the earliest part of her career, Cher operated as a solo artist and simultaneously in duet with her then husband Sonny Bono. She released her second solo album, The Sonny Side of Chér, in 1965. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down), written by Bono, was its second single, released the following year. The folk pop track was the first of her singles to sell over a million copies, one of her top hits of the sixties. In 1987 she re-recorded the track with more of a electronic rock sound, produced in part by Jon Bon Jovi who shared backing vocal duties on it with Michael Bolton.
Through the years, Cher, her music, and her style became inspirational to the queer community despite not actually being queer herself. (Though she did portray a lesbian in the 1983 film, Silkwood.) Her child with Bono came out as gay and eventually transitioned to a transgender male. She may have initially had some difficulty with this but eventually came to accept it, thereafter raising her voice with her son Chaz and the LGBT community to champion for their rights.
Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows is a Neue Deutsche Todeskunst ("New German Death Art") neo-classical darkwave project helmed by German transgender artist Anna-Varney Cantodea. "Sopor Æternus" is Latin for "Eternal Sleep" and Cantodea's name is derived from James Malcolm Rymer's Varney, the Vampire and a Latin phrase loosely translated as "I sing the goddess." She identifies in non-binary ways and has felt "neither male nor female", and as she calls it, "two-spirited," all her life. Her orientation and identity reportedly caused her to be on the receiving end of cruel and violent responses from family and peers through her childhood. Cantodea, now in her mid-sixties, has been working on this project for nearly three decades, with transexuality a recurring theme, and just released her thirteenth album earlier this year. Sopor's cover of Bang Bang, however, was included on their twelfth studio album, Mitternacht - The Dark Night of the Soul, released in September 2014. It also includes covers of Verne Langdon's Carnival of Souls and Julie Cruise's Into the Night. Cantodea regards the album as "autobiographical," but in one interview found on Sopor's Bandcamp page, when asked specifically about Bang Bang she said she could not remember why she'd chosen it and says that's a "good thing because that means the problem or the inner conflict if you wish, has been solved." She describes the song as "strange" and "silly" and thinks Cher has many great songs. According to the same interview, she confesses she thinks Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves is "fabulous" but wouldn't choose to cover it because it sounds musically too much like Sopor and she jokes, "I wasn't born on the wagon of a traveling show." She goes on to detail vaguely some of Bang Bang's personal meaning to her, "In my case, it doesn't just refer to one particular thing or person, and even keeps changing perspective. It's more about a state of mind, if you wish. A neurotic notion ... a dependency ... " Her original intent was to do the song ironically in a way similar to Sopor's previous cover of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero but decided in the studio to do it seriously instead, stating that made more sense because "there is no irony on the album at all."
This melancholy bard presents the track in a wholly unique way to that of other covers, most prominent among those might be Nancy Sinatra's version which often incorrectly gets confused as the original. Sopor's neofolk/neomedieval approach is far more theatrical, melodramatic, and mysterious, the shadows of her ensemble stalking the listener with a subtle threat that makes the omitted titular line all but unnecessary.:
The Cover:
https://soporaeternus.bandcamp.com/track/bang-bang
The Original:
Next week:
Are you an American? For the week of Independence Day, a female industrial artist from LA asks "do you?" when she covers an English "nu"wave synth-industrial track from the late seventies that ponders one's desire for humanity.
♪┌(•⌂•)┘♪
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 next gig isn't until July (excepting a wedding coming up later this month) so check my schedule for details and the RSVP link on Facebook. News of other upcoming events soon to be posted as well!
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jun 17 - Die Warzau - S & M (Thin Lizzy)
Jun 10 - The xx - Teardrops (Womack & Womack)
Jun 03 - And One - Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat)
May 27 - MGT - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell)
May 20 - Carbon 12 - Burning Down The House(Talking Heads)
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.
We wrap up our June focus on songs either originally by or covered by artists in the LGBTQ+ community with a selection that breaks a couple of my personal, albeit arbitrary, rules set for the blog: downtempo covers are usually reserved for the second Sunday of the month and the covers here are typically something generally "club" and/or "dance" worthy. On that latter point it's fair to say not all goth music fits that standard, subjective as it might be to individual taste.
This month has offered me an opportunity to discover the music of quite a few artists of whom I had heard but to whom I had not given time to listen. Though I could have gone in a lot of directions, what I learned about what I found, combined with the motivation to make sure a least one entry for the month was specifically trans-inclusive, convinced me today's featured artist and this neoclassical gothic darkwave cover was the right choice.:
Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) (Cher)
In the earliest part of her career, Cher operated as a solo artist and simultaneously in duet with her then husband Sonny Bono. She released her second solo album, The Sonny Side of Chér, in 1965. Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down), written by Bono, was its second single, released the following year. The folk pop track was the first of her singles to sell over a million copies, one of her top hits of the sixties. In 1987 she re-recorded the track with more of a electronic rock sound, produced in part by Jon Bon Jovi who shared backing vocal duties on it with Michael Bolton.
Through the years, Cher, her music, and her style became inspirational to the queer community despite not actually being queer herself. (Though she did portray a lesbian in the 1983 film, Silkwood.) Her child with Bono came out as gay and eventually transitioned to a transgender male. She may have initially had some difficulty with this but eventually came to accept it, thereafter raising her voice with her son Chaz and the LGBT community to champion for their rights.
Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows is a Neue Deutsche Todeskunst ("New German Death Art") neo-classical darkwave project helmed by German transgender artist Anna-Varney Cantodea. "Sopor Æternus" is Latin for "Eternal Sleep" and Cantodea's name is derived from James Malcolm Rymer's Varney, the Vampire and a Latin phrase loosely translated as "I sing the goddess." She identifies in non-binary ways and has felt "neither male nor female", and as she calls it, "two-spirited," all her life. Her orientation and identity reportedly caused her to be on the receiving end of cruel and violent responses from family and peers through her childhood. Cantodea, now in her mid-sixties, has been working on this project for nearly three decades, with transexuality a recurring theme, and just released her thirteenth album earlier this year. Sopor's cover of Bang Bang, however, was included on their twelfth studio album, Mitternacht - The Dark Night of the Soul, released in September 2014. It also includes covers of Verne Langdon's Carnival of Souls and Julie Cruise's Into the Night. Cantodea regards the album as "autobiographical," but in one interview found on Sopor's Bandcamp page, when asked specifically about Bang Bang she said she could not remember why she'd chosen it and says that's a "good thing because that means the problem or the inner conflict if you wish, has been solved." She describes the song as "strange" and "silly" and thinks Cher has many great songs. According to the same interview, she confesses she thinks Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves is "fabulous" but wouldn't choose to cover it because it sounds musically too much like Sopor and she jokes, "I wasn't born on the wagon of a traveling show." She goes on to detail vaguely some of Bang Bang's personal meaning to her, "In my case, it doesn't just refer to one particular thing or person, and even keeps changing perspective. It's more about a state of mind, if you wish. A neurotic notion ... a dependency ... " Her original intent was to do the song ironically in a way similar to Sopor's previous cover of Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out for a Hero but decided in the studio to do it seriously instead, stating that made more sense because "there is no irony on the album at all."
This melancholy bard presents the track in a wholly unique way to that of other covers, most prominent among those might be Nancy Sinatra's version which often incorrectly gets confused as the original. Sopor's neofolk/neomedieval approach is far more theatrical, melodramatic, and mysterious, the shadows of her ensemble stalking the listener with a subtle threat that makes the omitted titular line all but unnecessary.:
The Cover:
https://soporaeternus.bandcamp.com/track/bang-bang
The Original:
Next week:
Are you an American? For the week of Independence Day, a female industrial artist from LA asks "do you?" when she covers an English "nu"wave synth-industrial track from the late seventies that ponders one's desire for humanity.
♪┌(•⌂•)┘♪
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 next gig isn't until July (excepting a wedding coming up later this month) so check my schedule for details and the RSVP link on Facebook. News of other upcoming events soon to be posted as well!
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jun 17 - Die Warzau - S & M (Thin Lizzy)
Jun 10 - The xx - Teardrops (Womack & Womack)
Jun 03 - And One - Smalltown Boy (Bronski Beat)
May 27 - MGT - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell)
May 20 - Carbon 12 - Burning Down The House(Talking Heads)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies