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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.
Here we are in America, just less than 100 days before one of the most important mid-term elections this generation has known, with our country in turmoil and nearing complete unbridled chaos. I have not been shy about one of my theories about how we got here. I hold all levels of the news media responsible. In my estimation, our fourth estate failed us when, instead of focusing on what would inform a public best on the issues relevant to voting, they focused the whole of their attention on what would drive ratings. Now it may additionally need to be said that, as a culture, there is a problem with what we are willing and eager to consume in media. After all, there must be a reason those directing the press believed that without resorting to elevating into prominence someone so undeserving our attention they could not get viewers, readers, clickthroughs, etc... In my opinion, it stands that ratings-driven news is a plague on the proper political education of the public.
What does any of this have to do with the Depeche Mode cover on our latest Fifth Sunday A La Mode feature?
(And why do I even do a Depeche cover every fifth Sunday?)
Well here's a song that is a fairly direct and apt examination of the problem, though perhaps not specifically intended as such in its original conception.:
Menschliche Energie - New Dress (Depeche Mode)
New Dress is the last track on Depeche Mode's fifth album, Black Celebration, released in March, 1986. The song was never released as a single. Its lyrical framework is a collection of mock headlines of serious (if sensationalized) import, the end of each verse hooked with the superficial headline "Princess Di Is Wearing A New Dress," modulated as if broadcast via radio. Each headline was thought to reference actual news stories of that time: the Korean Airlines flight shot down by a Soviet interceptor in 1983, the famine in Ethiopia, the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, etc...
The more direct commentary comes in the bridge wherein it threads a line that starts with how one can't change the world, but through changing facts, then views, and then votes, the world may in fact be changed. It seems intended as a rebuke of news institutions placing frivolous concerns over matters of sizable importance or a warning on the nature of their innate power over society and the responsibility they must take wielding it. However in the mid-90's, songwriter Martin Gore gave an interview that might indicate that his intent was more of a critique on Princess Diana herself and expressed some regret for the song, saying, "In the song I bluntly describe how the Princess of Wales goes out for a walk in her pretty new dress, in full ignorance of the land around her sinking into chaos. I did not know about all of the social engagement the Princess was involved in. I did not know that in the 80s, as I wrote this song, that she was the only royal family member who was interested in being the patroness of the future AIDS foundation, which did not exist in Great Britain at that point in time. I did not know that she was an opponent of fox hunting. I did not know that she took her three-year-old son William with her to the homeless shelter, so that he could see a piece of the land to which he would one day become king. I knew absolutely nothing about her. I have done her a deep injustice with New Dress." (Quote translated from what appeared as a German translation of the original English article, there may be errors.) Princess Diana tragically died only a couple years after Gore issued that statement.
The song has since been covered by a number of goth/industrial artists, including Antivote, Sol Niger, Razed in Black, nTTx, and Klutæ (though later attributed to Leæther Strip).
Menschliche Energie, German for "Human Energy," is the EBM/electro/darkwave solo project of Reizstrom singer/frontman Michael "Me Cha" Stalzer. Depeche Mode would appear to be one of Stalzer's greatest inspirations, having done covers of Ice Machine and Work Hard with Reizstrom, as well as The Sun and the Rainfall, To Have and To Hold, and New Dress with his solo effort. His specific inspiration for the latter isn't publicized but it is found on his 2014 album of otherwise original music, aptly titled, The Truth Is Lying. He approaches his version with a bit of twitchy elasticity and downplays the instrumentation backing the bridge, making it less aggressive but maybe a touch more ominous.
Depeche Mode derives their very band name from French etymology wherein its meaning translates in one variation as "a news report on fashion." This song is easily understandable as a currently relevant commentary that the news we need most is not about what's "fashionable," especially not when defending ourselves as we now do against "fascists.":
The Cover:
Find On Bandcamp
The Original:
Next week:
Let's call it "fast-paced" goth! (Basically forcing me to narrow down the tons of options I have to sift through.)
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.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jul 22 - Acidrodent - illisiT (Skinny Puppy)
Jul 15 - Laura Branigan - Self Control (Raf)
Jul 08 - Savlonic - Go with the Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
Jul 01 - Kanga - Metal (Gary Numan)
Jun 24 - Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)(Cher)
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.
Here we are in America, just less than 100 days before one of the most important mid-term elections this generation has known, with our country in turmoil and nearing complete unbridled chaos. I have not been shy about one of my theories about how we got here. I hold all levels of the news media responsible. In my estimation, our fourth estate failed us when, instead of focusing on what would inform a public best on the issues relevant to voting, they focused the whole of their attention on what would drive ratings. Now it may additionally need to be said that, as a culture, there is a problem with what we are willing and eager to consume in media. After all, there must be a reason those directing the press believed that without resorting to elevating into prominence someone so undeserving our attention they could not get viewers, readers, clickthroughs, etc... In my opinion, it stands that ratings-driven news is a plague on the proper political education of the public.
What does any of this have to do with the Depeche Mode cover on our latest Fifth Sunday A La Mode feature?
(And why do I even do a Depeche cover every fifth Sunday?)
Well here's a song that is a fairly direct and apt examination of the problem, though perhaps not specifically intended as such in its original conception.:
Menschliche Energie - New Dress (Depeche Mode)
New Dress is the last track on Depeche Mode's fifth album, Black Celebration, released in March, 1986. The song was never released as a single. Its lyrical framework is a collection of mock headlines of serious (if sensationalized) import, the end of each verse hooked with the superficial headline "Princess Di Is Wearing A New Dress," modulated as if broadcast via radio. Each headline was thought to reference actual news stories of that time: the Korean Airlines flight shot down by a Soviet interceptor in 1983, the famine in Ethiopia, the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, etc...
The more direct commentary comes in the bridge wherein it threads a line that starts with how one can't change the world, but through changing facts, then views, and then votes, the world may in fact be changed. It seems intended as a rebuke of news institutions placing frivolous concerns over matters of sizable importance or a warning on the nature of their innate power over society and the responsibility they must take wielding it. However in the mid-90's, songwriter Martin Gore gave an interview that might indicate that his intent was more of a critique on Princess Diana herself and expressed some regret for the song, saying, "In the song I bluntly describe how the Princess of Wales goes out for a walk in her pretty new dress, in full ignorance of the land around her sinking into chaos. I did not know about all of the social engagement the Princess was involved in. I did not know that in the 80s, as I wrote this song, that she was the only royal family member who was interested in being the patroness of the future AIDS foundation, which did not exist in Great Britain at that point in time. I did not know that she was an opponent of fox hunting. I did not know that she took her three-year-old son William with her to the homeless shelter, so that he could see a piece of the land to which he would one day become king. I knew absolutely nothing about her. I have done her a deep injustice with New Dress." (Quote translated from what appeared as a German translation of the original English article, there may be errors.) Princess Diana tragically died only a couple years after Gore issued that statement.
The song has since been covered by a number of goth/industrial artists, including Antivote, Sol Niger, Razed in Black, nTTx, and Klutæ (though later attributed to Leæther Strip).
Menschliche Energie, German for "Human Energy," is the EBM/electro/darkwave solo project of Reizstrom singer/frontman Michael "Me Cha" Stalzer. Depeche Mode would appear to be one of Stalzer's greatest inspirations, having done covers of Ice Machine and Work Hard with Reizstrom, as well as The Sun and the Rainfall, To Have and To Hold, and New Dress with his solo effort. His specific inspiration for the latter isn't publicized but it is found on his 2014 album of otherwise original music, aptly titled, The Truth Is Lying. He approaches his version with a bit of twitchy elasticity and downplays the instrumentation backing the bridge, making it less aggressive but maybe a touch more ominous.
Depeche Mode derives their very band name from French etymology wherein its meaning translates in one variation as "a news report on fashion." This song is easily understandable as a currently relevant commentary that the news we need most is not about what's "fashionable," especially not when defending ourselves as we now do against "fascists.":
The Cover:
Find On Bandcamp
The Original:
Next week:
Let's call it "fast-paced" goth! (Basically forcing me to narrow down the tons of options I have to sift through.)
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.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jul 22 - Acidrodent - illisiT (Skinny Puppy)
Jul 15 - Laura Branigan - Self Control (Raf)
Jul 08 - Savlonic - Go with the Flow (Queens of the Stone Age)
Jul 01 - Kanga - Metal (Gary Numan)
Jun 24 - Sopor Æternus & the Ensemble of Shadows - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)(Cher)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies