Most Overrated Covers

          I’ve been meaning to write this post, although I’m a bit disappointed in my coming up with only seven entries so far. I don’t even dislike all of the songs on this list. Some of these covers are decent, yet often annoyingly asserted to be better than their source material despite their clearly being not. Others are generic, yet often annoyingly asserted to be better than their source material despite their clearly being not. One of them is arguably an improvement over an already terrible song. I suppose this qualifies them all as “overrated” and enough to make a list with. I’m also a bit nonplussed by my coming up with a far greater number improved covers for another post, since conventional wisdom dictates that discernment emphasizes the negative.

          Another struggle involved here is the conflict between “overrated” and “least favorite,” since not all the overrated covers are bad and not all my least favorite covers are popular. The latter are my two dishonorable mentions:

          “Warriors of the World” by Brides of Lucifer. While shopping for MP3’s for my road trip tunes, I had to settle for this in lieu of the Manowar original. While I appreciate this female cover in concept, its vocals are awkwardly robotic, lacking any syncopation. There’s absolutely no energy to this despite its atmosphere. This seems to be a common problem on Amazon, selling acceptable to underwhelming (often genderbent) obscure covers instead of the original. And people wonder why piracy exists. 

POV: You are listening to Brides of Lucifer's
cover of "Warriors of the World."

           “Baby Where Did Our Love Go” by Soft Cell. I would be indifferent to this bland, perfunctory Supremes cover if it did not function a Sword of Damocles threatening to cut short my enjoyment of their classic “Tainted Love” cover at any second. This misguides medley is intriguing since it involves two songs that are practically inversions of each other: A cover of an obscure MoTown song so good that the band has made it their own, and a cover of a famous MoTown song so generic you wonder why they even bothered.

            Now down to business:

 

 

7. JENNIFER SAUNDERS – “HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO”

- Original by Bonnie Tyler

To be fair, this is actually a solid and worthy cover, and I may concede that Saunders is technically a better singer. However, it lacks the raw, hardcore energy of the original. I also go out and say this: “Holding Out for a Hero” is my favorite song. Its epic sound combined with its themes of larger-than-life heroism complete with how it relates maleness and femaleness makes it one of the few modern songs out that that truly tapped into something primal. This cover, use utilized well in the Shrek 2 which, unlike the Mario Bros. Movie, had the sense to save it for a climactic battle scene.

 

6. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT – “HALLELUJAH” 

- Original by Leonard Cohen

A presentable cover, although the Shrek series seems to have a thing for inferior covers that everybody mistakes for improvements. Covers that lack the raw edge provided in part by the original singer’s distinctive rasp. Ironically, one could far more validly assert that the movie's score is an improved cover since it’s basically an orchestral cover of “Hallelujah” and...also the theme to Deep Blue Sea, apparently. Of course, this is not quite a killjoy the fact that you can’t really enjoy either version without swarms of lyriccels emerging from a dimensional rift like Annihilus screeching pedantically about how the song is actually about not being able to make a woman cum.

 

 

5. DISTURBED – “THE SOUND OF SILENCE”

- Original by Simon & Garfunkel

This is a member of a common genus: The Perfunctory Hard Rock Cover. Most are competent and forgettable, but a couple get strangely overrated. Of course, I’m going to make an even bolder statement by saying that I find Disturbed overrated in general. It’s often touted as cut above the rest (presumably due to some good guitar work), but its overall style is a remarkably mediocre and generic manifestation of the genre of rock in vogue at the time. In short, a 2000’s version of Van Halen. Still, whenever a conversation arises over improved covers, you can rest assured that this song will be juxtaposed with Johnny Cash’s deservedly popular “Hurt” cover (sorry to dash the hopes of some of my fellow villains, but a man has to draw the line somewhere) instead of pairing it with its true kin…

 

4. ALIENT ANT FARM – “SMOOTH CRIMINAL”

- Original by Michael Jackson

This PHRC is good example of how baffling Millennial nostalgia can be. Even if this was a genuinely cacophonic butchery, I might understand it as very bad taste, but it’s just competent. It even lacks some of the accented notes that give the original an extra punch. What’s more is that the video is Jackson’s magnum opus of choreography, outdoing “Thriller” with worthier music, and the new version doesn’t even try to match it. Still, Jackson put in a good word for it.

My friend theorized it was a symptom of everybody’s believing the stories at time (we now retcon enjoyment for more controversial reasons). Then again it could be reflective of the Millennial incuriosity over anything that happened before they reached the age of reason. It’s not like they like edgy new stuff, it’s that they often defiantly prefer disinterestedly hackish adaptations of cool stuff.  

 

3. THE COUNTING CROWS – “BIG YELLOW TAXI”

- Original by Joni Mitchell

Okay, now for the songs I genuinely hate. This is the one on this list that may be an improvement over the original. At least the new version displays some musical talent. Still, it’s an annoying, sappy bugbear, that I’ve been a captive audience for countless times while I foraged for sustenance. As is the case with a certain song so tiresome and inescapable that even its own band has grown sick of it, the retail market, for some unfathomable reason, freakin’ loves this song. I don’t know. Maybe they find it amusing that “parking” sounds like “fucking.” Maybe this is commercialism’s way of wearing the skin of its enemy (there's enjoyable music available for that). 

Thank goodness for Kroger Delivery.

I guess it goes to show that people of good taste are too stoic. Every time I hear trash like this in a store, I assume there was a time when they attempted to play Led Zeppelin or something and some Karen complained. I could say that we should step up to the plate, but principled conservatives have informed me that we should not sink to the level of our enemies.  

 

2. BLUE SWEDE – “HOOKED ON A FEELING”

- Original by BJ Thomas

I was relieved by release of Guardians of the Galaxy not just because the movie itself was entertaining, but also that it signified a possible reprieve from a full year unsolicited exposure this nasal assault on the tympanic membranes. Also, note how much more energy is in the original when it gets to "when I hold you..."

 

1. MANFRED MANN – “BLINDED BY THE LIGHT”

- Original by Bruce Springsteen 

I’ve come to discover that Springsteen is a pretty decent musician despite his most memetic work’s being mediocre at best (see also: A-Ha), and I’ve spent too much time ignorantly blaming him for a song I’ve despised for the better portion of my life as the original is tolerable. Springsteen himself expressed disappointment and even made the famous observation about the inadvertently crude mispronunciation of “deuce.” Ironically, my familiarity with Manfred Mann consists of this and a genuinely enjoyable cover. 

 

 

Hubris 101

I Am Charlotte Simmons

Tom Wolfe

2004

**********

 

      Tom Wolfe’s insight to the broiling ideological diseases plaguing America has made him one of the more important authors in recent history. In his penultimate nonfiction novel, he tackles an environment I was privy to: Naughts-era college life. Many of the spoiled fratboy and outcast habits are present in a way that takes me back. 

      The book revolves around Charlotte Simmons, a working-class student whose grades were good enough to justify a scholarship to a prestigious Ivy League school called Dupont. However, I question the necessity of making this an Ivy League school, and it may be the one point in which the commentary falls flat. Presumably it was so that Wolfe can emphasize the elite, privileged nature of this college while entertaining the premise that its sports programs are profitable. From what I hear, Ivy League schools are comparably pathetic in that department because they don’t compromise on the scholar-athlete principle. The story would work just as well at a state school, which would definitely have its share of rich kids. The one interesting thing this decision adds is that it reinforces the theme of hypocritical pretension by mentioning that Dupont prides itself on not “selling out” by having an anthropomorphic mascot to represent its teams.

        The more substantial principle that Dupont does sell out on is that of the scholar/athlete. There is much justified controversy over the de facto college requirement for professional sports, particularly the fact that the colleges profit from it while not allowing their own athletes a cut (imagine having a career-ending injury before you’re allowed to even have a career!). Some would argue that their payment is a pampered free education, and the “pampered” part may be true. However, it is also known that these schools recruit from ghettos solely based on athletic performance. The education received is a joke, and the book documents well not only how athletes have an alternative curricula of easy courses, but also how athletes will purposefully underperform so as to avoid the “nerd” stereotype.

         The novels antagonist, Hoyt Thorpe, represents the worst of these athletes. Prideful and promiscuous, he has enough education to rationalize his reptilian, hedonistic priorities as a reclamation of the pre-Christian virtues of strength and courage. Much like Perelandra's Unman, he uses the fashionably erudite reference of the Greek hero as smokescreen to justify his barbarism. As if Wolfe wasn’t already prescient enough in his eloquent codification of hypocritical woke self-righteousness in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), he called the Bronze Age Mindset (2018) in 2004! As appropriate to the Nietzschean Right’s irrelevancy in the culture war, Hoyt’s pride as an Alpha is tempered by his high status of Lacrosse, one of the few sports he can still dominate as a white person.

         Less pretentious is another white athlete of vaguely Scandinavian nomenclature, Jojo Johanssen, who is a competitive star on the basketball team due to his height. Still, he struggles with academics due to a clerical error committed by his coach’s attractive, but air-headed secretary: he and numerous other teammates have been placed in a legitimate history course taught by a poorly-dressed, overweight liberal professor named Quat who hates the sports program. While his comrades hold their own, Jojo is dependent upon his tutor ghost-writer Adam Gillen, a smart, but financially desperate student who survives writing the papers for these athletes while delivering pizza for a small business owner who somehow gets away with not even paying his delivery boys (their primary source of income is tips). The future of both characters is threatened when Jojo forgets about his paper until the last second, forcing Adam to write the entire thing in one night. As a result, he had no time to simulate Jojo's less sophisticated vocabulary, and the paper is immediately recognized as a fraud by Professor Quat, who relishes in the opportunity to take both of them down.

           Even the left-leaning nerd club that Adam is a part of demonstrates signs of Alpha logic, only their manhoods are expressed intellectually in a scene in which they constantly one-up each other with their theories on how shallow athletic competitions are. It’s a bit too on the nose, to be honest. Interestingly this group is called the “Millennial Mutants,” which reminds me of how “Millennial” once referred to my age group.

           Meanwhile, our heroine Charlotte displays the naivete that would ultimately cause problems for her. She inadvertently ends up in one of the athlete’s French courses and is puzzled by the use of English text when she had already been used to studying in a more advanced way. Her intellectual disappointment intrigues her classmate Jojo, and sparks his kindling interest in education. Amusingly, her overeducation shows when she is momentarily taken aback by the modern architectural usage of the word atrium after mental image of it being influenced by the study of Ancient Roman houses. Her modernized provincialism is demonstrated by her shock when a feminist classmate “forfeits all femininity” by daring a bullying male to take a swing at her, not realizing that it is, in fact, a very traditional use of feminine leverage. This naivete is mixed with some modern social embarrassment when her backwater parents attempt to charm those of her rich roommates.

         These traits are what lead to the climax of the story in which she is ultimately seduced by Hoyt and loses her virginity. Treated like a rag and humiliated, she is thrust into depression and her grades suffer. In keeping with the themes of intellectual hypocrisy, her philosophy teacher is disappointed by his pet students’ fall from grace, despite his love of Fatalism, a paradox common among its practitioners. 

         What ultimately saves Jojo and Adam is a major arc set up at the beginning of the story involving Hoyt. Drunkenly wandering around the campus with a friend at night, he comes across the sight of the visiting RepublicanGovernor in a compromising sex act. He beats up the pursuing bodyguard and escapes, with rumors of the act's reinforcing his status as the Big Man on Campus. To sweeten the deal, he is offered hush money and a job by the Governer. However, Adam’s sleuthing on the subject for the school paper blows the whole thing open, and Quat, caring more about culture war victories than the academic principles he claims to prioritize, drops the case against him and Jojo. Adam has proven himself useful in the fight against both conservativism and the sports program.

          You know Wolfe is based when he goes out of his way to write a villain without drip.

          Charlotte eventually recovers from her depression and forms a mature relationship with Jojo, whose newfound curiosity has caused him to blossom into a genuine scholar as well as a successful athlete. Our more sympathetic characters end up with a happy ending.

          As with most of Wolfe’s fiction, he ends abruptly after the climax, but for some reason it seems more natural here than in his previous books for reasons this dragon can’t quite put his finger on. The writing style is engaging and witty, although Wolfe seems to make it a little too clear that the characters are unsophisticated (he makes a big deal of the jocks’ crude aversion to parted hair from their own pov text, for example). His research is also emphasized by his observance of esoteric ticks, such as the tendency of young girls to randomly pronounce sentences as questions. However I Am Charlotte Simmons displays Wolfe’s ability to bring to light the ideologically-significant trends lurking in society in an engaging story. 

         It should be seen as one of his classics.