Time to break down the doors and kick the charts in the face (well, probably not) as we once again check out the weird phenomenon that occurs when
METAL GOES
Most people have a love/hate relationship with Yngwie Malmsteen, a large percentage of whom come down on the side of the latter. But what can't be denied, even if you hate his style, is that the boy can play guitar! I haven't heard that much of him to be able to make up my own mind, just the one album, but I did enjoy it mostly. However we're not here to discuss my likes and dislikes, and the point about ol' Yngwie is that he covered a song you probably, again, would not expect, as part of his anthology released at the turn of the millennium.
“Gimme gimme gimme” by Yngwie Malmsteen, from the album The Best of 1990-1999, 2000.
Originally by ABBA, from the album Greatest Hits Vol 2, 1979 and also included as a bonus track on the CD remaster and reissue of the album Voulez-Vous, 2001.
Written by Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Malmsteen is known for his neoclassical style of guitar playing, and to my knowledge does not sing, so this will either be an instrumental or feature someone else on vocals.
Okay, well he gets over any accusations of homosexuality by changing the tagline to “Gimme gimme gimme your love after midnight”, when it's originally “a man after midnight”. I thought he might just shove “a girl” in instead, which, while it would scan, would be very obviously a replacement. This works better and the song does not suffer from its change. Comments on the YouTube video lead me to believe that it's Mark Boals on vocals, and as he's the one who sang the only non-instrumentals on the only Yngwie album I have heard, that does make sense, but I can't confirm if it is the case. Naturally Yngwie goes wild on the guitar, though for him it's actually reasonably restrained. A good job I must say overall.
Disturbed covering Genesis? Well, it happened. On their third album the guys took on one of the singles from the really pop era of Phil Collins and Co, and came up with this gem.
“Land of confusion” by Disturbed, from the album Ten Thousand Fists, 2005.
Originally by Genesis from the album Invisible Touch, 1986.
Written by Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks.
I'm not a fan of
Invisible Touch. There are some good songs, indeed some very good ones, but for me it's the point at which Genesis, having shaken off the pop trappings of
ABacab and returned with a very prog album in their self-titled release of 1983, sort of stepped backwards and really in effect never really recovered, losing much of the remnants of the progressive rock that they had built their career on. But
fuck that, and f
uck Genesis, say you! You don't want to hear about some pussy prog rock/pop band. This is fu
cking Metal Month! You've all of next month to bore us to tears with Genesis. Get with the programme, Trolly! (Stop calling me Trolly; I'm not a drinks cabinet on wheels nor can load me up with your shopping). Anyway, the point is that normally I wouldn't be too enamoured of anyone taking on a Genesis song, but with this one, hell I don't mind. I'm sure Disturbed are relieved.
Interestingly, as Genesis used a video for this song in which they were represented as “Spitting Image” puppets, Disturbed opted to go for a cartoon depiction, and even more interesting, the vocalist sounds eerily like Phil Collins! They don't actually change the song much really; it is basically guitar driven so there's not too much to work with I suppose. Decent version though. Worth it? Probably, on the whole, no.
Turisas are a viking or folk metal band from Finland, and actually I featured this very album in the section “What's that all about?” last year, mentioning this very track and discounting it with a sneer. Now I find myself featuring it. Ah, how the mighty have fallen, or something. Well, in my defence, there's no way this song would be accepted as any kind of viking metal, and that's what I was all about (as it were) in Metal Month II. But this is Metal Month III, and this is what we're about at this point, so let's give it a fighting chance.
“Rasputin” by Turisas, from the album The Varangian Way, 2007.
Originally by Boney M, from the album Nightflight to Venus, 1978.
Written by Fred Jay, Frank Farian and Goerge Reyam.
Yeah, that one. The one everyone sings as soon as they're drunk enough at the Christmas party. The one that gets murdered at every karaoke party you've ever been to. The one whose lyric nobody remembers other than “Ra ra Rasputin!” It's a damn silly song to begin with, but then whoever said Boney M were ever about anything but fun and having a good time? What do Turisas do with it?
They certainly speed it up, as you would probably expect, and give it a kind of folk twist, which again is their forte. The chorus is roared, which is funny but also predictable, and the drums just go wild on it. Think someone's playing an accordion or fiddle or something there in the background. The spoken middle eighth has a very viking feel about it, and to make it even funnier (and somehow more authentic and true to the original) Turisas shot the video in a disco. Man, those Russians, huh?
Lacuna Coil are another band I know not too much about. I've heard one or two albums, and for what they do --- sort of a mix of gothic/symponic metal and power metal --- they're pretty godo at it. On one of the albums I do know, they cover an REM song, though this was not the first time they had “gone pop”, as they also have a version of Depeche Mode's “Enjoy the silence” on 2006's
Karmacode, which, coincidentally I assure you, are the two LC albums I have heard. I don't quite remember how the REM one goes though, so let's have a listen to that.
“Losing my religion” by Lacuna Coil, from the album Dark Adrenaline, 2012.
Originally by REM from the album Out of Time, 1991.
Written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe.
Never a huge fan of REM, I have heard the hits and also listened to
Automatic For The People, but this was such a hit for them that you might as well say you had never heard “Everybody hurts”. Perhaps appropriate when you consider Lacuna Coil have recorded songs such as “Angel's punishment” and “Heaven's a lie”, though what the band's religious beliefs are, and whether or not they influence their songwriting I have no idea.
While REM's original is based around a mandolin melody, naturally Lacuna Coil's is harder, more direct and built on guitar and rippling keyboard, with a slight change in the tune of the vocal. Male vocals interchange with female, and it works well. You could actually, had you not heard the REM version, believe Lacuna Coil had written this. They certainly breathe new life into what could be seen to be at this point a somewhat tired song, ans whereas Stipe tended to, to my mind, whine the lyric, this is a forceful, powerful, angry vocal.
Back to power metal we must go, and our first visit to Greece, where we meet a band who have what I believe to be one of the coolest logos ever, see below.
Greece is not exactly known for rock music, never mind metal, but perhaps next year we'll get to delve more into them in “The International Langauge of Metal”. Or perhaps we'll range further afield yet. Who knows? But as it is, Emerald Sun have been in existence since 1998, and have released four albums in that time, of which we are concerned with their third.
“Holding out for a hero” by Emerald Sun, from the album Regeneration, 2011.
Originally by Bonnie Tyler, from the album Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire, 1986.
Written by Jim Steinman and Dean Pitchford.
There have been a ton of versions of this song, including one in the movie “Shrek”, which started on slow piano and which I would have loved to have seen continue in that vein, but it's a high-powered, frenetic and exciting song, and I guess you can't hold it down. It was a big hit for Bonnie Tyler in her comeback after the spectacular success of “Total eclipse of the heart”, but although she had a massive hit with this song too (also written by Meat Loaf kingmaker Jim Steinman) that was about it for her. She's still releasing albums, but nobody really cares anymore. Emerald Sun tackled a version of this on their third album. Nobody cares about them either, but let's see if anyone should?
Good keyboard intro then the guitar bites in, and it's at the tempo you would expect. Not sure how they reconcile a male singing the lyric, as it specifically refers to needing a man, but in these days of gender equality maybe that doesn't matter as much as it did, and you certainly couldn't change the words: “I need a heroine, I'm holding out for a heroine”? Would be totally stupid. Maybe it helps that the singer sounds a little feminine, but I have checked and it's a guy. Good guitar solo there, waiting for the bridge, here it comes .... doesn't really change that much, just carries the song on as it was. As a version it's okay but not all that different to Tyler's version I have to say.