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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.
Continuing "Anotha' Cova' Novemba'!" A month when we'll focus on alternate covers of songs previously featured here or an additional cover from an artist we've already presented. Today's Second Sunday Slowly downtempo feature is in the category of "previously featured artist." In one way, it's a huge indulgence for me because I just saw the band live, met them, even took a selfie with them! Crazy! They didn't perform the cover I featured here last year but they did perform this cover that my wife has declared "better than the original!" That's saying something considering she's one of the biggest fans of the original artist I know. It happens I think it's pretty damn great too!:
Strvngers - Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
Nine Inch Nails released its second studio album, The Downward Spiral, in March 1994. Closer was the second single from the album, released a little over two months later.
While the single came just shy of achieving a spot on the mainstream top 40, its edited version got considerable play on radio and its video was in heavy rotation on music video television for quite a while. The video, directed by Mark Romanek, was a wild sepia-washed look into a psychosexual laboratory with bizarre imagery that included a live monkey on a crucifix, diagrams of female genitalia, various applications of fetish gear, and a human heart beating in time to the music. That signature beat was actually produced by way of a sample of Iggy Pop's 1977 single Nightclubing, modulated and looped as the track's establishing rhythm line. (Later, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor covered Nightclubing in full with Atticus Ross and Peter Murphy during their With Teeth: Summer Tour 2006 Radio Collaboration.)
Reznor wasn't entirely appreciative of the direction the fame of the song took. For all its popularity, he believed it was deeply misunderstood. He described it as "supernegative and superhateful. It's 'I'm a piece of shit and I am declaring that and if you think you want me, here I am.'" His dismay came from a realization that the song had become in part, as he called it "a frat-party anthem or a titty-dancer anthem."
Misunderstood or not, the song is still a crowd-pleaser at clubs and concerts alike.
Closer has been covered a few times by a variety of artists; most of those covers being of lesser in quality for all the tribute intended. One bizarre cover by a one-off novelty act calling themselves Nine Inch Richards turns the song into a country western menagerie, swarming with various farm animal noises, called Closer to Hogs.
On October 13, Strvngers released the second volume of their free compilations of remixes and covers titled Exhumed. With over twice as many tracks as the first volume, they include covers of Korn's A.D.I.D.A.S, Gerard McMahon's Cry Little Sister, Generation X's Dancing with Myself, Eddie Murphy's Party All The Time, and Closer by Nine Inch Nails.
The darkwave/goth duet Maria Joaquin and KC have said that a lot of their reason for picking these songs was because they enjoy performing them and Closer was specifically one of KC's choices. In a recent interview, Maria explained that because their music can be so serious and he doesn't "want to be sad all the time" they've decided that once a year they'd "put out a collection of cover songs that we really wanted to cover as a kid," exhuming old songs from their past to share with fans today.
Already attuned to what they call a "sonic-erotic" style, their version of Closer opens with elements clearly sampled in reverence from the original, mixed with the narration of a sensual inductress guiding the listener to a state of auditory arousal. As a harshly harmonized duet and with the use of a number of electronic deviations from the source, they manage to maintain the tempo and skillfully make the song feel ever more aggressive than before. It may sound strvnge... but it kind of makes you want to let them violate you! (Ok...maybe that's just me＼(ºOº)／, but you can decide for yourself):
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Anotha' Cova' Novemba' continues with a Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century... likely an older cover of a more modern previously featured track.
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
Nov 04 - Ayria - Invincible(Pat Benatar)
Oct 28 - NoBunny - Monster (Fred Schneider)
Oct 21 - Pouppée Fabrikk - I Want Candy (The Strangeloves)
Oct 14 - Darken The Doorstep - The Hearse Song (Carl Sandburg)
Oct 07 - Zombina And The Skeletones - Dracula's Tango [Sucker For Your Love] (Toto Coelo)
. 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.
Continuing "Anotha' Cova' Novemba'!" A month when we'll focus on alternate covers of songs previously featured here or an additional cover from an artist we've already presented. Today's Second Sunday Slowly downtempo feature is in the category of "previously featured artist." In one way, it's a huge indulgence for me because I just saw the band live, met them, even took a selfie with them! Crazy! They didn't perform the cover I featured here last year but they did perform this cover that my wife has declared "better than the original!" That's saying something considering she's one of the biggest fans of the original artist I know. It happens I think it's pretty damn great too!:
Strvngers - Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
Nine Inch Nails released its second studio album, The Downward Spiral, in March 1994. Closer was the second single from the album, released a little over two months later.
While the single came just shy of achieving a spot on the mainstream top 40, its edited version got considerable play on radio and its video was in heavy rotation on music video television for quite a while. The video, directed by Mark Romanek, was a wild sepia-washed look into a psychosexual laboratory with bizarre imagery that included a live monkey on a crucifix, diagrams of female genitalia, various applications of fetish gear, and a human heart beating in time to the music. That signature beat was actually produced by way of a sample of Iggy Pop's 1977 single Nightclubing, modulated and looped as the track's establishing rhythm line. (Later, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor covered Nightclubing in full with Atticus Ross and Peter Murphy during their With Teeth: Summer Tour 2006 Radio Collaboration.)
Reznor wasn't entirely appreciative of the direction the fame of the song took. For all its popularity, he believed it was deeply misunderstood. He described it as "supernegative and superhateful. It's 'I'm a piece of shit and I am declaring that and if you think you want me, here I am.'" His dismay came from a realization that the song had become in part, as he called it "a frat-party anthem or a titty-dancer anthem."
Misunderstood or not, the song is still a crowd-pleaser at clubs and concerts alike.
Closer has been covered a few times by a variety of artists; most of those covers being of lesser in quality for all the tribute intended. One bizarre cover by a one-off novelty act calling themselves Nine Inch Richards turns the song into a country western menagerie, swarming with various farm animal noises, called Closer to Hogs.
On October 13, Strvngers released the second volume of their free compilations of remixes and covers titled Exhumed. With over twice as many tracks as the first volume, they include covers of Korn's A.D.I.D.A.S, Gerard McMahon's Cry Little Sister, Generation X's Dancing with Myself, Eddie Murphy's Party All The Time, and Closer by Nine Inch Nails.
The darkwave/goth duet Maria Joaquin and KC have said that a lot of their reason for picking these songs was because they enjoy performing them and Closer was specifically one of KC's choices. In a recent interview, Maria explained that because their music can be so serious and he doesn't "want to be sad all the time" they've decided that once a year they'd "put out a collection of cover songs that we really wanted to cover as a kid," exhuming old songs from their past to share with fans today.
Already attuned to what they call a "sonic-erotic" style, their version of Closer opens with elements clearly sampled in reverence from the original, mixed with the narration of a sensual inductress guiding the listener to a state of auditory arousal. As a harshly harmonized duet and with the use of a number of electronic deviations from the source, they manage to maintain the tempo and skillfully make the song feel ever more aggressive than before. It may sound strvnge... but it kind of makes you want to let them violate you! (Ok...maybe that's just me＼(ºOº)／, but you can decide for yourself):
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
Anotha' Cova' Novemba' continues with a Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century... likely an older cover of a more modern previously featured track.
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
Nov 04 - Ayria - Invincible(Pat Benatar)
Oct 28 - NoBunny - Monster (Fred Schneider)
Oct 21 - Pouppée Fabrikk - I Want Candy (The Strangeloves)
Oct 14 - Darken The Doorstep - The Hearse Song (Carl Sandburg)
Oct 07 - Zombina And The Skeletones - Dracula's Tango [Sucker For Your Love] (Toto Coelo)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .