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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.
Today's entry is happening on the day after what would have been the late Peter Burn's 58th birthday. Two weeks from now I'm going to throwback some love to Dead or Alive with one of his early covers. However, two weeks ago the industry lost another well-respected musician, so in his memory here's a tribute to his breakout hit.:
Solar Fake - One Step Closer (Linkin Park)
Vocalist Chester Bennington joined up with the band previously known as "Xero" [no, my name has no relation to this fact & is entirely coincidental] in early 1999. Together as "Hybrid Theory" they set to recording before ultimately deciding to take the name Linkin Park and then used Hybrid Theory as their debut album title. One Step Closer was their first single released in September 2000, one month before the album. It was a welcome addition to the Nu-metal genre, securing widespread airplay on radio internationally and immediately became the band's first major success. Bennington had confessed in one interview that he "would never have thought One Step Closer would have been as big as it was. I didn’t even want that on the album!" He also thought it "was weak in comparison" to other singles from the LP.
While Bennington's recent suicide would make it easy to suppose this song was reflective of some long term personal state of mind that led to that act, according to various interviews that would appear to not be the case. In another interview he recounted that the frustration expressed in the lyrics was actually due to his producer forcing him to rewrite the song nearly thirty times. Makes you wonder what its original lyrics were, considering its original name was "Plaster."
The good reputation of Chester Bennington's character seems to be far more extensive than the amount of covers anyone has done of his band might suggest. In fact, there are maybe a little more than a dozen or so artists who have covered Linkin Park, most being various rock & metal outfits. Most, not all.
Solar Fake is the synth/futurepop solo project of Berlin-based Sven Friedrich. He released his third album, Reasons To Kill in 2013, which features his version of One Step Closer. Friedrich has done a number of covers (Radiohead, IAMX, Placebo, Talk Talk, The Killers, et.al) each chosen because, as he has said, "I like taking one song that I like and trying to make it sound like it’s a Solar Fake song." He called Linkin Park "a very different band" from his project and said One Step Closer is "great in the live environment, it’s so much fun to play." While his aim may have been to make it sound much more like "Solar Fake," it's almost like he made Solar Fake sound more like Linkin Park instead by embracing a harder rock/industrial approach to his electronic rendition. Friedrich may also have less range than Bennington had, but his deep and resonant vocals seem appropriately level by design.
It tends to happen that after the loss of any particular musician a number of tributes get produced to honor their memory. There have been reports that a diverse array of popular musicians have been playing live tributes recently but no news to indicate any compilation might be released anytime soon, let alone specifically from artists of goth/industrial persuasions. So for now, Solar Fake's offering is fairly unique from the perspective of its genre.
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
We'll delve into a downtempo gothic metal remake of a late 70's disco sensation when Second Sunday Slowly spotlights some "greedy" Swedes.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
My next public gig is late this month. Details for that and some early fall dates are up on my schedule. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
P.S. In the early months of writing this blog some of the research on various covers drew my attention to the previous "All Covers" editions of the Communion After Dark podcast. Today they'll air their latest "All Covers" episode, so check that out! They always have a fun assortment of goth/industrial covers to share!
{I was going to donate to them for this episode, but I'm having issues with reloading my paypal. Hope the shout out will suffice.(ツ)}
Previous DisCOVERies
Jul 30 - Black Nail Cabaret - Shouldn't Have Done That (Depeche Mode)
Jul 23 - 4X4: HEALTH/Orkestra Obsolete/The Stitchlings/Bela Goosy - Blue Monday (New Order)
Jul 16 - Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails (Geneviève Waïte)
Jul 09 - You Shriek - Invisible Sun (The Police)
Jul 02 - Urgess - Spider-Man Theme (Paul Francis Webster and Robert "Bob" Harris)
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.
Today's entry is happening on the day after what would have been the late Peter Burn's 58th birthday. Two weeks from now I'm going to throwback some love to Dead or Alive with one of his early covers. However, two weeks ago the industry lost another well-respected musician, so in his memory here's a tribute to his breakout hit.:
Solar Fake - One Step Closer (Linkin Park)
Vocalist Chester Bennington joined up with the band previously known as "Xero" [no, my name has no relation to this fact & is entirely coincidental] in early 1999. Together as "Hybrid Theory" they set to recording before ultimately deciding to take the name Linkin Park and then used Hybrid Theory as their debut album title. One Step Closer was their first single released in September 2000, one month before the album. It was a welcome addition to the Nu-metal genre, securing widespread airplay on radio internationally and immediately became the band's first major success. Bennington had confessed in one interview that he "would never have thought One Step Closer would have been as big as it was. I didn’t even want that on the album!" He also thought it "was weak in comparison" to other singles from the LP.
While Bennington's recent suicide would make it easy to suppose this song was reflective of some long term personal state of mind that led to that act, according to various interviews that would appear to not be the case. In another interview he recounted that the frustration expressed in the lyrics was actually due to his producer forcing him to rewrite the song nearly thirty times. Makes you wonder what its original lyrics were, considering its original name was "Plaster."
The good reputation of Chester Bennington's character seems to be far more extensive than the amount of covers anyone has done of his band might suggest. In fact, there are maybe a little more than a dozen or so artists who have covered Linkin Park, most being various rock & metal outfits. Most, not all.
Solar Fake is the synth/futurepop solo project of Berlin-based Sven Friedrich. He released his third album, Reasons To Kill in 2013, which features his version of One Step Closer. Friedrich has done a number of covers (Radiohead, IAMX, Placebo, Talk Talk, The Killers, et.al) each chosen because, as he has said, "I like taking one song that I like and trying to make it sound like it’s a Solar Fake song." He called Linkin Park "a very different band" from his project and said One Step Closer is "great in the live environment, it’s so much fun to play." While his aim may have been to make it sound much more like "Solar Fake," it's almost like he made Solar Fake sound more like Linkin Park instead by embracing a harder rock/industrial approach to his electronic rendition. Friedrich may also have less range than Bennington had, but his deep and resonant vocals seem appropriately level by design.
It tends to happen that after the loss of any particular musician a number of tributes get produced to honor their memory. There have been reports that a diverse array of popular musicians have been playing live tributes recently but no news to indicate any compilation might be released anytime soon, let alone specifically from artists of goth/industrial persuasions. So for now, Solar Fake's offering is fairly unique from the perspective of its genre.
The Cover:
The Original:
Next week:
We'll delve into a downtempo gothic metal remake of a late 70's disco sensation when Second Sunday Slowly spotlights some "greedy" Swedes.
Comments, suggestions, discussions, etc... welcome!
(You do NOT need a Dreamwidth account to comment, but all comments are screened for spam prevention.)
My next public gig is late this month. Details for that and some early fall dates are up on my schedule. ^_^
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
P.S. In the early months of writing this blog some of the research on various covers drew my attention to the previous "All Covers" editions of the Communion After Dark podcast. Today they'll air their latest "All Covers" episode, so check that out! They always have a fun assortment of goth/industrial covers to share!
{I was going to donate to them for this episode, but I'm having issues with reloading my paypal. Hope the shout out will suffice.(ツ)}
Previous DisCOVERies
Jul 30 - Black Nail Cabaret - Shouldn't Have Done That (Depeche Mode)
Jul 23 - 4X4: HEALTH/Orkestra Obsolete/The Stitchlings/Bela Goosy - Blue Monday (New Order)
Jul 16 - Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails (Geneviève Waïte)
Jul 09 - You Shriek - Invisible Sun (The Police)
Jul 02 - Urgess - Spider-Man Theme (Paul Francis Webster and Robert "Bob" Harris)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies