Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Strange but good

Although I nominally listen to BBC 6 Music in the mornings when I'm getting up and ready for work, I find myself often hearing things but never finding out who the songs are by. For example, I'd heard that thing by Lily Allen several times before I realised who was singing, and I'm sure I've listened to several up and coming new bands without actually being able to identify any of them. Mind you, I could argue that none of them have ever inspired me to find out the band or singer so that I can buy the stuff myself (apart from searching iTunes to find XTC's "Senses Working Overtime" which I heard on Phill Jupitus' show a couple of weeks ago). One exception, though, has been Amy Winehouse's "Rehab", which I did feel the need to buy.

This morning I heard what has to be one of the oddest cover versions ever considered: The Divine Comedy covering "No-one Knows" by Queens Of The Stone Age. I missed probably about half of the song: the bit I did hear was good, but... It's just the utter incongruity of it, rather like Nouvelle Vague's smooth versions of punk classics, that was so striking. Neil Hannon's take is not quite as sleazy as Josh Homme's, and the Divine Comedy's version features (namechecked) banjo and violin solos!

Having now checked The Divine Comedy's official website, I see that the cover version is listed on the Q&A page. However, it doesn't appear to be slated for an official release.

2 Comments:

At Tue Nov 07, 09:39:00 pm, Blogger Emily said...

hello! i just spotted this blog post on google, thought i'd comment.

the cover of "Noone Knows" was released as a b-side on The Bavarian EP, off of the album "Absent Friends". you can get it on iTunes by looking up Thr Divine Comedy.

 
At Sat Nov 11, 10:28:00 pm, Blogger Tamburlaine said...

Wow, thanks for the link, Paul. Still prefer the original, though.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home