![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
February is the month I devote to those dark/goth/industrial covers that appeal to a Dark Valentinian motif... and for 2018 it focuses on 3 Loves & A Crush!
The final cover of this four-part feature is the "Crush" wherein a familiar track with trip hop and goth appeal from an alternative rock band from the 90's is given tribute. That tribute comes from a nu-metal band that interprets the track with an eerie electronic rock rendition in line with the actual original version more so than the one of which you're probably more aware!:
The Alpha Complex - #1 Crush (Garbage)
Garbage first released #1 Crush as a b-side on non-American pressings of their first single, Vow, in March 1995. They also included it as a b-side for their next single, Subhuman, in August 1995, again only on pressings outside the United States. Even its appearance on the band's first self-titled album was limited to the Japanese release of the album later that year, and not in the States. It seems inexplicable that an American band from Madison, Wisconsin would make what would end up one of their best known songs so difficult for their home country's fans to find or hear. Eventually, after a remix of the song by Nellee Hooper and Marius de Vries was done for the soundtrack of the 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, the track was released as a single in the U.S., given tremendous alternative radio airplay, and earned them their first (and only) #1 hit on the modern charts. Despite being the first song on the soundtrack and listed in the credits, if you were to fear that you suffer the Mandella Effect for being unable to remember or find where the song played in the film, it's no wonder. You can only hear clearly one line of the entire song during a scene where Juliet draws a veil back from her face while contemplating her impending plan to feign death and then two words repeated and mixed into a high energy dance beat as Romeo races to her, thinking her dead. [Spoilers?]
Lead singer Shirley Manson has described the song as "slightly autobiographical." She's explained that the primary premise of the song centers around a potentially unhealthy obsession from the point of view of a stalker "who wasn't quite right." Producer and drummer Butch Vig has called the track, "disturbing."
There are a total of four other covers I've found in the course of writing this, and of them two are fairly recent and pretty exceptional: those by ∆Aimon and Silver Snakes. All four of these covers sound largely inspired by the remixed version. The Alpha Complex, however, may be such fans of Garbage that their version sounds like a far more sinister take on the actual original. They include the song on their 2014 debut album, Generate. Their cover is quite a departure from the style and sound of the rest of the album which, by comparison to their cover, seems little more than mediocre amped up power-pop nu-metal. Certainly there's nothing "gothic" about their general sound otherwise... but they cross over that threshold brilliantly for this brief moment to blend an atmosphere of creepy ambiance with an aggressive dark rock counterpoint. They have a new album in development now so maybe they'll grow a little more artistically in this direction.
(The original featured below is not what you've may have heard in the clubs or on the radio, so it's worth a listen just to hear where it started, which was without quite as much moaning.):
The Cover:
The Original:
(Click here for the Remix you know.)
Next week:
My 150th Blog! And every time I think I know what song I'll feature... something else comes along and catches my ear.. so it's safe to say that even after 149 entries, I have just as many options from which to narrow down my choice!
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.)
My next gigs are in March! A PJ party and a better reason to wear green! Check my schedule for details as they come! ↼‿ಠ
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 18 - Assemblage 23 - Love My Way (The Psychedelic Furs)
Feb 11 - Johnny Hollow - Temple of Love (Sisters of Mercy)
Feb 04 - Rotersand - A Strange Kind Of Love (Peter Murphy)
Jan 28 - Reizstrom - Blister In The Sun(Violent Femmes)
Jan 21 - Course of Empire - Blue Moon(Connie Boswell)
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.
February is the month I devote to those dark/goth/industrial covers that appeal to a Dark Valentinian motif... and for 2018 it focuses on 3 Loves & A Crush!
The final cover of this four-part feature is the "Crush" wherein a familiar track with trip hop and goth appeal from an alternative rock band from the 90's is given tribute. That tribute comes from a nu-metal band that interprets the track with an eerie electronic rock rendition in line with the actual original version more so than the one of which you're probably more aware!:
The Alpha Complex - #1 Crush (Garbage)
Garbage first released #1 Crush as a b-side on non-American pressings of their first single, Vow, in March 1995. They also included it as a b-side for their next single, Subhuman, in August 1995, again only on pressings outside the United States. Even its appearance on the band's first self-titled album was limited to the Japanese release of the album later that year, and not in the States. It seems inexplicable that an American band from Madison, Wisconsin would make what would end up one of their best known songs so difficult for their home country's fans to find or hear. Eventually, after a remix of the song by Nellee Hooper and Marius de Vries was done for the soundtrack of the 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, the track was released as a single in the U.S., given tremendous alternative radio airplay, and earned them their first (and only) #1 hit on the modern charts. Despite being the first song on the soundtrack and listed in the credits, if you were to fear that you suffer the Mandella Effect for being unable to remember or find where the song played in the film, it's no wonder. You can only hear clearly one line of the entire song during a scene where Juliet draws a veil back from her face while contemplating her impending plan to feign death and then two words repeated and mixed into a high energy dance beat as Romeo races to her, thinking her dead. [Spoilers?]
Lead singer Shirley Manson has described the song as "slightly autobiographical." She's explained that the primary premise of the song centers around a potentially unhealthy obsession from the point of view of a stalker "who wasn't quite right." Producer and drummer Butch Vig has called the track, "disturbing."
There are a total of four other covers I've found in the course of writing this, and of them two are fairly recent and pretty exceptional: those by ∆Aimon and Silver Snakes. All four of these covers sound largely inspired by the remixed version. The Alpha Complex, however, may be such fans of Garbage that their version sounds like a far more sinister take on the actual original. They include the song on their 2014 debut album, Generate. Their cover is quite a departure from the style and sound of the rest of the album which, by comparison to their cover, seems little more than mediocre amped up power-pop nu-metal. Certainly there's nothing "gothic" about their general sound otherwise... but they cross over that threshold brilliantly for this brief moment to blend an atmosphere of creepy ambiance with an aggressive dark rock counterpoint. They have a new album in development now so maybe they'll grow a little more artistically in this direction.
(The original featured below is not what you've may have heard in the clubs or on the radio, so it's worth a listen just to hear where it started, which was without quite as much moaning.):
The Cover:
The Original:
(Click here for the Remix you know.)
Next week:
My 150th Blog! And every time I think I know what song I'll feature... something else comes along and catches my ear.. so it's safe to say that even after 149 entries, I have just as many options from which to narrow down my choice!
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.)
My next gigs are in March! A PJ party and a better reason to wear green! Check my schedule for details as they come! ↼‿ಠ
Explore the darkness,
-Xero
Previous DisCOVERies
Feb 18 - Assemblage 23 - Love My Way (The Psychedelic Furs)
Feb 11 - Johnny Hollow - Temple of Love (Sisters of Mercy)
Feb 04 - Rotersand - A Strange Kind Of Love (Peter Murphy)
Jan 28 - Reizstrom - Blister In The Sun(Violent Femmes)
Jan 21 - Course of Empire - Blue Moon(Connie Boswell)
Directory of All Previous DisCOVERies