In other NIN-related quasi-news, you know that horrendously overrated "real punk" band Savages? Surely you do, especially if you read Pitchfork more than you'd like to admit because it's just part of your daily routine at this point (like me).
Well, Savages' sister band, KITE BASE, just released an utterly baffling cover of "Something I Can Never Have," the excellent OG NIN ballad and centerpiece of Pretty Hate Machine. Check it out
here, but maybe read the rest of my post first unless you're totally bored and just need something to look at.
I call the cover "baffling" because it's a true WTF on loop. It actually starta off on a really interesting note. Monotone bass guitar feedback lends a sense of foreboding to the minimalist a cappella "bop-bop-bops" that act as the covers inexplicable anchor. Sounds stupid, but this part works for me, and I was kind of down with the song for the duration of the intro. It felt a bit like what I imagine a tongue-in-cheek Sleater-Kinney cover of the song might sound like (that would be awesome, by the way.)
But then things fall apart (no pun intended, swear it), as the song suffers from the same unfortunate
Ms.interpretarion of punk that makes befalls Savages' work. The problem, as I see it, is in the vocals. Or, more specifically, the vocalist. An overly emotive whatshername starts doing what appears to be her best Melissa Ethridge imitation, singing the lyrics in a painfully earnest manner with all kinds of unecessary little affectations that make this sound more like Florence Welch or Stevie Nicks than anything in the family of punk... or industrial... or even "alternative."
It's a missed opportunity. What we get is an interesting and promising reduction of the song's music, with vocals by Jewel a la "Who Will Save Your Soul" (only less yodely). This is what's wrong with Savages, too. The spirit of punk is present in their music, but it clashes with a vocal performance so conventional that there is no justification for it. Not in 2016. Perhaps in 1992... on pop radio... or something. I don't know.
But I get why I don't like Savages now. Id never watched a video of theirs before, and watching this helped me identify the aesthetic clash in their music that makes it neither pop enough for fun, or punk enough to be taken seriously.
Also, whatsername makes the ALWAYS BAD decision to stick with the same basic vocal approach from the original (minus the whispering), making it just a clean, sterile, joyless and purposeless endeavor entirely.
If you're going to cover a song, especially in a different musical style, do something new with the vocals! Otherwise what's the goddamn point? What if the Beatles had performed "Till There Was You" exactly as it had been performed in the fucking Music Man? Snooze.
Or, more appropriately, what if Trent Reznor had repeated Adam Ant's vocal delivery on "Physical?" It wouldn't be the asskicking out-of-nowhere kick to the balls that it had been as the deeply hidden track #98 on Broken. He sang it like a serial killer! It was awesome! And of course he gave it a thumping, ominous organic-industrial makeover on the musical end.
This could have been a cool cover with the right vox. Unfortunately it's a god awful mess and I can't imagine why anyone felt compelled to make this shit.
There. That's what Severian says.