You are viewing a read-only archive of the Blogs.Harvard network. Learn more.

Musical Sacrilege

This morning during my commute I was listening to a CD compilation of Robbie Williams tunes. At one point, his song “Angels” came on. I love this song. In my mind it is pop-song perfection. It made me realize even more how much I hate (nay, loathe) that dreadful Jessica Simpson version. How could Robbie allow that to happen? His version is so pretty and powerful…and hers is just another example of modern-day vocal aerobics.


It reminded me of watching Solid Gold as a kid. Remember how Marilyn McCoo would sing some popular song from that week? (probably since they couldn’t afford the original artist). I used to call that McCoo-ing a song….when another artist butchers a perfectly good song. Why couldn’t Solid Gold have just shown a video clip or something?


One of the only examples of an improved cover song that I can think of is Aretha Franklin’s cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect”…and I had to go back over 30 years to come up with that one. Oh, and I’m in the minority here, but I do like the Johnny Cash/Fiona Apple cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”…though I like the original just as much, too.


Oh, and on the medical front (again)…my niece is home for a few days until her surgery on Monday. But my father has some sort of “growth” on both of his eyes so he’ll be having a biopsy soon to determine whether it’s cancer. Apparently, there’s such a thing as eye cancer? Ugh.


 

6 Comments

  1. Comment by chrispy on October 19, 2004 4:29 pm

    jessica simpson has talent. somewhere.

  2. Comment by chrispy on October 19, 2004 4:31 pm

    i hope she has some talent in the Nick Lachey department….id teach her a thing or 2. LOL.

  3. Comment by Underling on October 19, 2004 5:19 pm

    I am glad to see I am not the only one who appreciates the Robbie Williams version of that song. When I hear the J. Simpson version I realized that I had yet another reason for wanting to kill her.

  4. Comment by jeff on October 19, 2004 6:51 pm

    someone needs to rip her vocal cords out so she can’t cover and ruin any more songs.

  5. Comment by David on October 20, 2004 9:51 am

    Come on people. Lay off Jessica. She could have gone the Britney Federline route and didn’t. But excuse me Karl, talking about covers. Um there is someone called the “Queen of Rock and Roll”. Ever heard of “PROUD MARY”, “Lets Stay Together”, Addicted to Love….Tina is the queen of covers!!!

  6. Comment by Karl on October 20, 2004 10:16 am

    David – I must say you are completely wrong about Jessica. But I do agree about Tina Turner. I do love her version of Proud Mary and Let’s Stay Together. Actually, I even like her version of Acid Queen better than The Who’s

Comments RSS

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.