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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.
Octoberween! Shlock Edition! This month's series of Halloween-themed covers fall into that range of fun b-movie style, no hit wonders, and oddities that may appeal best to those with truly singular tastes in schlock! We start with a gothabilly amalgam of zombies, vampires, and skeletons in a cover of an 80's pop dancefloor stalker!:
Zombina And The Skeletones - Dracula's Tango [Sucker For Your Love] (Toto Coelo)
Toto Coelo was a British new wave synthpop venture on the more saccharine side of the genre. The group was composed of five female singers assembled by producer and songwriter Barry Blue. They were essentially a Valley girl era model of the Spice Girls formula. Their name translated from Latin as "by the whole extent of the heavens," which may have been an overthought attempt to align themselves with the then internationally popular Valleyspeak idiom, "Totally!" (In the U.S. they actually had to use the name "Total Coelo" in order to avoid brand confusion with Toto, not that they attained any notable success in the States.)
Their first and only vaguely successful 1982 single, I Eat Cannibals, was not the only example of their strange approach of presenting horror themed lyrics with a mainstream dance-pop sensibility. Dracula's Tango (Sucker For Your Love), released later in 1982, is an upbeat, silly, pun-filled, if lyrically contrived, invocation of vampiric themes set in an actual tango rhythm, vaguely reminiscent of ABBA in style. Creaking coffins, evil laughter, and various howls are peppered throughout. The video features the quintet in striped pajamas being one by one summoned into the thrall of Dracula, while dancing embarrassingly ridiculous and laughable choreography. The song, later included on their 1983 album Man o' War, was no commercial success. The group attempted to continue as a trio to no avail and effectively fell into obscurity.
Though not entirely...
Zombina And The Skeletones, a horrorpunk, dark cabaret, psychobilly band from Liverpool, clearly had some fond memory of the track. They included a rare cover of Dracula's Tango on a digital-only EP made available in 2007 exclusively to their "Zombina Army" fan club. The four-track E.P., titled Halloween Party Classics, also included covers of Boris Picket's Monster Mash, Maria McKee's Show Me Heaven (not truly a Halloween classic at all, found originally on the Days Of Thunder soundtrack,) and Tracy's Strange Love (from the 1971 horror film Lust For A Vampire.) They eventually made the EP generally available on their previous, now archived, website. Their aggressive version of Dracula's Tango is quite the improvement on the song, with harder and richer goth rock elements far more appropriate to the content of the still no less silly lyrics.
There are a couple of other covers adapted to foreign languages so perhaps this track is a "Halloween classic" abroad. How has it gone nigh unnoticed in the U.S. for so long? Well... as they say... it's a mystery!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Octoberween '18 continues with Second Sunday Slowly and a bit of downtempo schlok... with a creepy Halloween ear"worm" that may have origins dating back to a war in the mid-1800's!
Want to check out or revisit the previous 3 years of SeeDarkly's Octoberween DisCoveries? Click here and scroll down the tag!
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
Sep 30 - Nerd Revolt - Photographic (Depeche Mode)
Sep 23 - Riviera F - Echo Beach - (Martha and the Muffins)
Sep 16 - Project Pitchfork - In The Year 2525(Zager & Evans)
Sep 09 - Skold - Pale As Chalk (Leæther Strip)
Sep 02 - Bestial Mouths - Being Boiled (The Human League)
. 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.
Octoberween! Shlock Edition! This month's series of Halloween-themed covers fall into that range of fun b-movie style, no hit wonders, and oddities that may appeal best to those with truly singular tastes in schlock! We start with a gothabilly amalgam of zombies, vampires, and skeletons in a cover of an 80's pop dancefloor stalker!:
Zombina And The Skeletones - Dracula's Tango [Sucker For Your Love] (Toto Coelo)
Toto Coelo was a British new wave synthpop venture on the more saccharine side of the genre. The group was composed of five female singers assembled by producer and songwriter Barry Blue. They were essentially a Valley girl era model of the Spice Girls formula. Their name translated from Latin as "by the whole extent of the heavens," which may have been an overthought attempt to align themselves with the then internationally popular Valleyspeak idiom, "Totally!" (In the U.S. they actually had to use the name "Total Coelo" in order to avoid brand confusion with Toto, not that they attained any notable success in the States.)
Their first and only vaguely successful 1982 single, I Eat Cannibals, was not the only example of their strange approach of presenting horror themed lyrics with a mainstream dance-pop sensibility. Dracula's Tango (Sucker For Your Love), released later in 1982, is an upbeat, silly, pun-filled, if lyrically contrived, invocation of vampiric themes set in an actual tango rhythm, vaguely reminiscent of ABBA in style. Creaking coffins, evil laughter, and various howls are peppered throughout. The video features the quintet in striped pajamas being one by one summoned into the thrall of Dracula, while dancing embarrassingly ridiculous and laughable choreography. The song, later included on their 1983 album Man o' War, was no commercial success. The group attempted to continue as a trio to no avail and effectively fell into obscurity.
Though not entirely...
Zombina And The Skeletones, a horrorpunk, dark cabaret, psychobilly band from Liverpool, clearly had some fond memory of the track. They included a rare cover of Dracula's Tango on a digital-only EP made available in 2007 exclusively to their "Zombina Army" fan club. The four-track E.P., titled Halloween Party Classics, also included covers of Boris Picket's Monster Mash, Maria McKee's Show Me Heaven (not truly a Halloween classic at all, found originally on the Days Of Thunder soundtrack,) and Tracy's Strange Love (from the 1971 horror film Lust For A Vampire.) They eventually made the EP generally available on their previous, now archived, website. Their aggressive version of Dracula's Tango is quite the improvement on the song, with harder and richer goth rock elements far more appropriate to the content of the still no less silly lyrics.
There are a couple of other covers adapted to foreign languages so perhaps this track is a "Halloween classic" abroad. How has it gone nigh unnoticed in the U.S. for so long? Well... as they say... it's a mystery!:
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Octoberween '18 continues with Second Sunday Slowly and a bit of downtempo schlok... with a creepy Halloween ear"worm" that may have origins dating back to a war in the mid-1800's!
Want to check out or revisit the previous 3 years of SeeDarkly's Octoberween DisCoveries? Click here and scroll down the tag!
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
Sep 30 - Nerd Revolt - Photographic (Depeche Mode)
Sep 23 - Riviera F - Echo Beach - (Martha and the Muffins)
Sep 16 - Project Pitchfork - In The Year 2525(Zager & Evans)
Sep 09 - Skold - Pale As Chalk (Leæther Strip)
Sep 02 - Bestial Mouths - Being Boiled (The Human League)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .