Gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference

[venta]

It's Friday, it's about 3 o'clock. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Today's cover version [link to mp3 download expired]

That was Ian Brown covering Thriller, originally by Michael Jackson

Before there's a chorus of "nah, I prefer the original"... I'm not claiming this is better. I'm just claiming it's interesting.

I'm curious, actually, as to whether anyone knows any other covers of Thriller. The Covers Project lists a few, but not any I know. I think of Thriller - with its iconic video - as being a song so distinctively Michael Jackson's that I'm surprised anyone really made a serious attempt at covering it.

One of the other things I am claiming, though, is that Ian Brown can't sing for toffee. This wasn't so obvious on some of the Stone Roses recordings, but it really is true.

Despite that, I like Ian Brown. F.E.A.R is a song I'd highly recommend if you want to know what he sounds like when he's not singing (I use the term loosely) Stone Roses' songs.

I'm not sure where this cover comes from. This discography suggests it might have also included a recording of Billie Jean, which I'm very curious to hear if anyone has it!

Comments

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Got it within a few beats. It is a very distinctive track and so stamped as MJ that it has a definitive identity. It is also very of its time and style. I'm kind of disapointed that he's gone funk with it as that is more or less where MJ pulled it out of. The Trippy vocal style doesn't work for me either, maybe it is to mask band singing. When you mentioned stone roses it clicked in.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I actually quite like this version, surprisingly!
The best Thriller cover I've ever heard, though, was at a Firewater gig in Paris. It was shortly after Jackson had died. The band played their main set, and then came back for an encore, and just started doing a sort of slightly reggae/dub-ish instrumental, and you could see people all through the audience going "Wait, I know this... what is it again? Hang on.... is that.... it can't be.... IT IS!!" and then doing the dance. Awesome moment.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

The 1969 Key To Change Centrepoint charity album features Ian Brown doing a rather good mariachi-tinged cover of In The Year 2525 ... well, I like it, anyway.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Having had a chance to listen now, I can see people's point about the vocals. His 'style' is less noticeable in 2525, and he's done something different with the orchestration for that, too - for this, he seemed to be mostly singing along to the original backing track. Which is not to say that I don't like it ...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I have this as part of a compilation called Tom Middleton Presents Crazy Covers, Volume 2, which I suspect I got off bibliogirl. Crazy it certainly is.

No Billie Jean though... although I do have a mashup of the original of that with Smells Like Teen Spirit, if that's any help. (Which fits together very well, better than these things sometimes do.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

No Billie Jean though... although I do have a mashup of the original of that with Smells Like Teen Spirit

Do you really? Are you sure?

You don't mean Rockin' Robin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNUTYHJrutw)? If you don't, I'd like to hear yours...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

And so you shall.

I also have Smells Like Teen Spirit mashed up with Get the Party Started, and (separately) with Sloop John B. I think it has a pretty amenable chord sequence.

That Rockin' Robin one is clever, but I reckon that amount of speeding up is cheating.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Well, it's been a while since I really didn't like one, I suppose. I didn't know Imogen Heap had covered it though - that I'll have to track down.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Ooooh. Now that I do like.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. It's interesting, but I'm not sure I like it all that much. Still, we've each got one we like so let's call that a win :)

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Let's!

[lnr]

I got it the song straight away from the intro bassline, and the singer is unmistakable once he starts singing, though I did think "Stone Roses" rather than "Ian Brown". That is really quite barking, but I like it.

Partly it's the mashup of 80s nostalgia with 90s nostalgia. But to me his style of being unable to sing is at least still quite pleasing, in a noticeably flat way :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I too guessed the song. For a while after he started singing I wondered if it was a parody cover - I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone sound that un-thrilled about anything since Marvin from HHGttG!