July 11, 2004
Your New Favorite Song.
There are a couple of misplaced covers on Diana Krall's otherwise uniformly excellent -- no, really, it's her strongest album in years -- The Girl in the Other Room. One is a superfluous cover of her hubby's "Almost Blue" -- you would have thought that she (or Everything But The Girl, whose disastrous cover was on the execrable Acoustic) would have learned from Chet Baker how "Almost Blue" should be done. (See the Let's Get Lost soundtrack for details.)
The second wrong-headed cover is her slinky version of Tom Waits' "Temptation," completely lacking the wheezy, lurching, barroom ambience of the original. Sorry: Tom don't do slinky.
Speaking of "slinky" -- bad segue here, I know -- the Smashing Pumpkins' slinkyish cover of my favorite Depeche Mode song makes the original sound even more sinister. I've never been able to figure out what it's about: drugs? Sex? Riding in a car? What's the deal about "wearing the trousers?" Is it a companion piece to "Behind the Wheel?" Anyhow, Billy Corgan's strangled whine of a voice is great here, still suggesting Dave Gahan's detached monotone; along with the restrained guitar work (dropping the original synth riffs), it makes for a perfect cover.
Hear it. (5.6 mb)
Posted by the wily filipino at July 11, 2004 06:24 PM