Like a Rolling Stone

 So a while back I wrote:

I've heard a few good covers (Jimi Hendrix, Green Day), a couple okay (the Rolling Stones' version actually was better than I'd expected if still not exactly transcendent) and a bunch of terrible (John Mayer, sure, but David Gilmour?! What were you thinkin', man?), but few if any great. 

And I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Because this cover is not good. It's absolutely great. 

I think what I missed the first time is that element that takes it from good to great. 

It's not Bille Joe Armstrong's vocal delivery, which is indeed great and has a similarly punkish attitude as the original did, even if their nasally vocal tones sound nothing alike. 

It's not Mike Dirnt's typically great bass playing, laying a perfect foundation over which the others can go anywhere. 

No, what makes this cover great is Tré Cool's typically incendiary playing. His post-post-punk playing gives the cover the kind of energy that the Bobby Gregg gave the original—especially that opening snare shot that, as one fan put it, "sounded like somebody kicked open the door to your mind"—but updated for a new century. 

As the bard once said, "play it fucking loud." 

Manic Monday

In which we learn that punks can grow old gracefully. (With luck and if they so choose.)

Boys

So how on earth did I miss this? It is awesome and very nearly rock and roll happiness personified:

I am incapable of hearing that song without thinking about how staggeringly homoerotic it is and how delightful it is that it literally doesn't seem to have ever occurred to the lads, and once it finally did, in the 00s, Ringo was all, "the hell with it—I'm Ringo: I do what I want."

To which I can only say: damn skippy. Rock on, Ringo.

Johnny B. Goode

This is one of the greatest, most apropos covers I've ever seen, up there with Springsteen covering Dylan and R.E.M. covering CCR, from the trademark Green Day energy and sound to the oddly appropriate lackluster approach to the lyrics.

Long live rock.

Surrender/Bastards of Young

Apparently Green Day refers to this as "the midwestern medley." I refer to it as "so very good."

(Yeah, it might be a little weird to pair up perhaps the most heartfelt, soul-bearing song of the first 2/3rds of the Replacements' output with an absolutely pristine power-pop ditty with confused and confusing takes on sexuality, but since these are two of the top Big Star acolytes ever, and the tempos match up, we'll go with it.)

Get Up, Stand Up / Hitchin' a Ride

Now this is what I'm talkin' 'bout.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of mashups. Sure, some are lazy, some don't work at all, and some are simply amusing. But at their best, an unexpected juxtaposition can successfully limn the originals such as to create something that's actually a new and valid work of art—not to mention fun and interesting and cool.

For instance. At first you'd think there's was nothing Bob Marley and Green Day have in common, and musically, you'd probably be right. But both use(d) pop music as a way to express discontent, resentment and disillusionment with the status quo of contemporary politics and socio-economic conditions. (And, of course, to make some money and meet lots of girls.) In some ways, they're actually remarkably similar, even if the end result was completely different.

Or was, until the magic of the mashup.



You can fool some people sometimes but you can't fool all the people all the time.
Now everybody do the propaganda and sing along to the age of paranoia.