DJ Xero, Operative of SeeDarkly™ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seedarklyxero) wrote2019-01-13 10:00 am
seedarklyxero) wrote2019-01-13 10:00 am
SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies: Creepin' on Feet of Clay
late nightWelcome to SeeDarkly Sunday DisCOVERies:
a weekly exploration of goth, industrial, & dark alternative cover songs!
First time here? Click here for details from first entry.
Time for another Second Sunday Slowly when our featured cover is of a downtempo variety! This week speaks to the outsiders who don't quite fit in, in one way or another, with an alt-rock hit from the nineties and its most recent cover of over a hundred!:
Clayfeet - Creep (Radiohead)
British alternative-rock band Radiohead released their debut single, Creep, in September 1992, five months in advance of their first album, Pablo Honey. Initially, the track did not chart well for several months until an Israeli DJ popularized it in his country, after which it picked up more interest worldwide. They reissued the single and eventually it attained platinum level record sales despite falling short of being a number one hit.
Singer Thom Yorke said of his inspiration for the song, "I have a real problem being a man in the '90s… Any man with any sensitivity or conscience toward the opposite sex would have a problem. To actually assert yourself in a masculine way without looking like you're in a hard-rock band is a very difficult thing to do… It comes back to the music we write, which is not effeminate, but it's not brutal in its arrogance. It is one of the things I'm always trying: To assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it."
He has also said the track is about being in love but feeling that you're not enough, and that there are "the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us."
Now that the song is as widespread and popular as it is, the band is said to no longer be fond of it, nicknaming it, "Crap." Other factors may also have influenced the erosion of their appreciation for it. One discomforting thought is that Yorke claims a number of murderers allegedly wrote fan mail telling the band how much they relate to the song. Another mark of some discontent likely comes from being sued for copyright infringement by The Hollies, who recognized (easy as it is to notice in comparison) that Creep sounded very much like their 1974 hit, The Air That I Breathe. They won the suit and were attached to the song credits as co-songwriters. While Radiohead might have actually admitted to the charge, one could imagine the affair lessening their enthusiasm for the song over time.
Radiohead's love of it may have diminished, but it remains one of their most popular songs and is their most covered single. There are as many as 120 known covers of Creep, possibly more. Some notable artists who've covered it include Amanda Palmer, Clan of Xymox, Collide, Korn, Parralox, Pretenders, Prince, Solar Fake, and Tears for Fears.
The Hungarian dark-pop synth-duo Clayfeet released their cover of Creep in late December 2018. Lead singer Babra explains that she'd first heard the song in her teenage years and "was able to identify with the bitter, melancholic message."* The duo had already recorded a guitar-centric version with their previous project but decided to take another swing at it from a more electronic approach. And it suits the song well. They invoke melodies similar to that of the Erasure-era instrumentation of Vince Clarke, and it might be natural to assume they would be influenced by him since the "b-side" of this single is Ice Machine, written by Clarke during his time with Depeche Mode. The first quarter of their version of Creep is minimalist and haunting, building through the chorus, after which they drop a light groovy trip-hop-esque beat that pulses between pop sensibility and something more divergent. While the original was already a downtempo grungy rock anthem for the less sociable (perhaps even more suited for the misanthropic), Clayfeet seem to offer it in a tone with a little more empathy and a little less self-deprecation, making it just bit more conducive to finding a light inside the darkness of one's isolation or even celebrating it.
*quote translated from Hungarian may contain errors.
The Cover:
The Original: (available official source is a radio edit that changes "fucking" to "very" in the lyrics)
Next week:
For this month's Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century, a "painful" yet pleasurably industrial take on an eighties new wave classic from bare-headed men who just want us all to dance in security!(๑>ᴗ<๑)
For Martin Luther King Jr weekend I have two late night gigs back to back at Arisia, the sci-fi/fantasy convention in Boston. Music is pretty broad-range so it's not for the goth/industrial "purists"... but I WILL be blending in a lot of cross-format goodies and other surprises. The dances ALSO serves as a fundraiser to benefit the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. So if you like geeky things, plan to be in the area, and want to check us out, or if you just want to be generous and make a donation to the fundraiser, CLICK HERE for DETAILS!
Feel free to leave a comment about that or tell me what you think about today's cover!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jan 06 - Manufactura - Sex, Money, Freaks (Cabaret Voltaire)
Dec 30 - Fictional - Happiest Girl (Depeche Mode)
Dec 23 - Unheilig - Kling Glöckchen Klingelingeling (Traditional)
Dec 16 - Rasputina - Why Don't You Do Right? (Lil Green)
Dec 09 - KMFDM - Mini Mini Mini(Jacques Dutronc)
. 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.
Time for another Second Sunday Slowly when our featured cover is of a downtempo variety! This week speaks to the outsiders who don't quite fit in, in one way or another, with an alt-rock hit from the nineties and its most recent cover of over a hundred!:
Clayfeet - Creep (Radiohead)
British alternative-rock band Radiohead released their debut single, Creep, in September 1992, five months in advance of their first album, Pablo Honey. Initially, the track did not chart well for several months until an Israeli DJ popularized it in his country, after which it picked up more interest worldwide. They reissued the single and eventually it attained platinum level record sales despite falling short of being a number one hit.
Singer Thom Yorke said of his inspiration for the song, "I have a real problem being a man in the '90s… Any man with any sensitivity or conscience toward the opposite sex would have a problem. To actually assert yourself in a masculine way without looking like you're in a hard-rock band is a very difficult thing to do… It comes back to the music we write, which is not effeminate, but it's not brutal in its arrogance. It is one of the things I'm always trying: To assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it."
He has also said the track is about being in love but feeling that you're not enough, and that there are "the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us."
Now that the song is as widespread and popular as it is, the band is said to no longer be fond of it, nicknaming it, "Crap." Other factors may also have influenced the erosion of their appreciation for it. One discomforting thought is that Yorke claims a number of murderers allegedly wrote fan mail telling the band how much they relate to the song. Another mark of some discontent likely comes from being sued for copyright infringement by The Hollies, who recognized (easy as it is to notice in comparison) that Creep sounded very much like their 1974 hit, The Air That I Breathe. They won the suit and were attached to the song credits as co-songwriters. While Radiohead might have actually admitted to the charge, one could imagine the affair lessening their enthusiasm for the song over time.
Radiohead's love of it may have diminished, but it remains one of their most popular songs and is their most covered single. There are as many as 120 known covers of Creep, possibly more. Some notable artists who've covered it include Amanda Palmer, Clan of Xymox, Collide, Korn, Parralox, Pretenders, Prince, Solar Fake, and Tears for Fears.
The Hungarian dark-pop synth-duo Clayfeet released their cover of Creep in late December 2018. Lead singer Babra explains that she'd first heard the song in her teenage years and "was able to identify with the bitter, melancholic message."* The duo had already recorded a guitar-centric version with their previous project but decided to take another swing at it from a more electronic approach. And it suits the song well. They invoke melodies similar to that of the Erasure-era instrumentation of Vince Clarke, and it might be natural to assume they would be influenced by him since the "b-side" of this single is Ice Machine, written by Clarke during his time with Depeche Mode. The first quarter of their version of Creep is minimalist and haunting, building through the chorus, after which they drop a light groovy trip-hop-esque beat that pulses between pop sensibility and something more divergent. While the original was already a downtempo grungy rock anthem for the less sociable (perhaps even more suited for the misanthropic), Clayfeet seem to offer it in a tone with a little more empathy and a little less self-deprecation, making it just bit more conducive to finding a light inside the darkness of one's isolation or even celebrating it.
*quote translated from Hungarian may contain errors.
The Cover:
The Original: (available official source is a radio edit that changes "fucking" to "very" in the lyrics)
Next week:
For this month's Third Sunday Throwback to the 20th Century, a "painful" yet pleasurably industrial take on an eighties new wave classic from bare-headed men who just want us all to dance in security!(๑>ᴗ<๑)
For Martin Luther King Jr weekend I have two late night gigs back to back at Arisia, the sci-fi/fantasy convention in Boston. Music is pretty broad-range so it's not for the goth/industrial "purists"... but I WILL be blending in a lot of cross-format goodies and other surprises. The dances ALSO serves as a fundraiser to benefit the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. So if you like geeky things, plan to be in the area, and want to check us out, or if you just want to be generous and make a donation to the fundraiser, CLICK HERE for DETAILS!
Feel free to leave a comment about that or tell me what you think about today's cover!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Jan 06 - Manufactura - Sex, Money, Freaks (Cabaret Voltaire)
Dec 30 - Fictional - Happiest Girl (Depeche Mode)
Dec 23 - Unheilig - Kling Glöckchen Klingelingeling (Traditional)
Dec 16 - Rasputina - Why Don't You Do Right? (Lil Green)
Dec 09 - KMFDM - Mini Mini Mini(Jacques Dutronc)
. Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies .
no subject
no subject
You missed where Collide was mentioned, which you'll find listed in-between Clan of Xymox & Korn above.¯\(◉◡◔)/¯
I also did not mention two jazzy foxtrot versions of which I'm personally fond. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ
no subject