Rectangles
Fine Art
Nicholas Negroponte
Door Handles in the State of Illinois
Ebscohost
The Amish
Undergraduates
Graduates
Itinerant City Folks
Dating Services
Kodak Education Store
Media Criticism
Procrastination
Taking It Easy
Chinese Guitars
Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?
I think we all know what sad bastard music is, but, for the sake of codification, we can trace the term to the film adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity. And, for the sake of context (and those who haven’t seen the movie or read the book), H.F. follows record store owner and devoted sad bastard, Rob Fleming, through an unabashedly vulnerable and introspective quest to find the meaning of love and heartbreak. In the off moments, he too codifies, making highly suspect top-five lists and wearing Cosby Sweaters.
I’m not here to spend too much time on context or codification though. After all, this information can be found with Wikipedia and a keen sense of things few – if any – people truly care about. I think we all know what a Sad Bastard is too, simply because we all have a little bit of a Sad Bastard inside. Or maybe a lotta bit. We know it. It’s the little part of us that puzzles, as Rob does: Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
He’s talking about Love, of course, and the misery thereof, and that’s supposed to be thorny and profound…somehow. But, in short, the Sad Bastard is the quixotic emotional type, really, just morose about a bunch of mediocre bullshit. The S.B. is the part of your emotional state that really just needs to shut the fuck up for a minute, watch some Simpsons, and call it an early night because File Under Mediocre Bullshit Music doesn’t really have the same kind of ring to it.
Despite that, I still believe Sad Bastard music is a viable genre of it own. So, in honor of the Sad Bastard within, I present my own sketchy top-five list of sad bastard music.
1. Twothirtyeight – Modern Day Prayer
2. Benji Hughes – Waiting For An Invitation
3. Radiohead – House of Cards
4. Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Possess Your Heart
5. Tom Waits – Take It With Me
There are three definite classifications of the cover song genus:
1. Pretty Good Cover Songs. This group contains covers that stay faithful to already popular and decent songs. John Lennon has a whole host of them, metal band KSE have re-done Dio’s “Holy Diver“, Chimaira did The Cure’s “Fascination Street“; even covers like Sheryl Crow’s version of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” fit here. Good, but not great.
2. Mind-bendingly Horrible Cover Songs (or: songs whats makes you wants to saw your brains out). This horror is usually a function of sacrilege (e.g. Madonna’s cover of “American Pie“, Limp Bizkit’s “Behind Blue Eyes“, or Maroon 5’s wank on The Beatles’ “If I Fell“), but can also be a result of horrible taste in general or a perverse post-modernism, ala Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer“…lounge style. Look, I’m not a hater (in fact, LB shows up later) but godawful things need to be identified. Then blogged about.
3. Covers that – for better or worse – re-contextualize the source such that the cover has its own identity as a song. A cover song isn’t just a hollow doppelgänger, and far too often bands forget this fact. Sometimes though, sometimes, they make magic:
S: Fight For Your Right To Party
P: Andrew Paul Woodworth
OP: Beastie Boys
note: there is no note.
S: Drive
P: Deftones
OP: The Cars
note: as far as I’m concerned, these guys own this list. I had a hard time chosing which badass cover to include; they done everybody from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Cypress Hill to Sade to The Cure, and owned them all. Their B-Sides and Covers album is teriffic, I suggest going to your local tape distributor and give it a spin.
S: Teardrop
P: Newton Faulkner
OP: Massive Attack
note: a classical guitar-playin’ hippy re-does the trip-hop theme to FOX’s show House? Yes. Would House like this song? Eh…
S: No Quarter
P: Tool
OP: Led Zeppelin
note: they say every hard rock band either wants to be Zeppelin or Sabbath. Toll definitely wants to be both. I, on the other hand, can say I’ve always wanted to be a Tool.
S: The Ghost Of Tom Joad
P: Rage Against The Machine
OP: Bruce Springsteen
note: Dust to dust. Springsteen talked about the existential and political angst that Rage Against the Machine wielded with great vengeance and furious anger during the nihilistic 90’s. Ashes too.
S: Hungry Like The Wolf
P: Black Light Burns
OP: Duran Duran
note: Sounds like something I would’ve recorded onto cassette when I was fourteen, but it’s so strange it works.
S: Personal Jesus
P: Johnny Cash
OP: Depeche Mode
note: just listen.
S: Faith
P: Limp Bizkit
OP: George Michaels
note: Okay, hammerheads. You don’t like this band. They are, however, geniuses. Not Albert Einstein geniuses, granted, but more like McDonald’s geniuses. This cover is case in point; only a pack of mavericks could make G.M.’s already stupid song into a completely retarded fist of ham. This isn’t to say they’re any good for you; the opposite is probably true, but a cheeseburger is a cheeseburger whether you like it or not. Genius.
S: Wanna New Drug
P: Greenskeepers
OP: Huey Lewis & The News
note: This band wrote a song about Hannibal Lecter. Here, they turn good, clean fun into a sleazy electro sex nightmare.
S: War Pigs
P: Cake
OP: Black Sabbath
note: best for last. Yes, horns do work in hard rock.
Patton Oswalt is the man. His ability to find the twisted subtext of mundane things is pitch perfect, definitely up there with George Carlin.
I’m gonna re-share some stuff I’d posted to facebook here, just to keep a record of it somewhere. I like this site better than facebook anyway, but facebook is much easier to update when I’m feeling particularly lazy. Today’s the first of these prorated posts; more to come later. So anyway:
This song works on every level I can think of from tone, to groove, to intention. If you don’t get it, you’re either ignorant or a liar.
3rd shift for less money than you even thought was possible.
He clearly cannot read. She thinks that’s cute.
He cannot read her thoughts either. Those she keeps a secret.
Along with her feelings.
And he’s a really great guy. If only.
But she’s hung up on her past to dry. If only that.
But he’s a really great guy. If only that wasn’t.
And she’s hung up on her past to dry. If only that wasn’t true.
Then everything would be okay.
But He can’t read. True.
And She can’t speak. True.
