Another day, another tune! I’m still on a Lake Street Dive bender so I thought I’d enthuse today about possibly my favorite of all their video clips, this cover of the familiar Eurythmics song but way better. All the pieces (instruments) fit, and Rachael just crushes it vocally, as usual. There’s a building momentum thing to this performance that culminates in peak vocal harmony happiness.
I was never that big on the original version, but this one highlights the melodic elements over atmospheric pretension and wins easily. Pop music writers are always judging music on other things besides the musical content, typically some made up genre they’ve been ordered to at least mention every time they cover the Ramones, proof positive that the pop music infrastructure is made up of extremely gullible people with no particular musical ability.
People really think those guys meant it! It was performance art, and the critics were screwed now. They couldn’t admit they’d been duped and had duped others – too late for that – so most carried on normally, now burdened by having to pretend that punk rock or whatever the Ramones were had been a big thing, a national trend. Utter bullshit, easily proven so by the sales charts, where none of this critic-foisted punk crap ever sold for shit.
But all the network news departments made sure to cover the punk “phenomenon” (in reality just a few bands in London who’d discovered spitting on patrons as a way to get mentioned in the press) as a scary new thing to make sure your kids avoid. See, punk played right into the hands of the right wing nut jobs of the day, who seem like commies compared to the far right of today.
Yikes! Kinda veered off there didn’t I! Back to the tune, which I love a whole lot and hope you will too. Enjoy! If you’re an actual fan of the Ramones I invite you to defend that position in the comments, a UN recognized safe haven for all creatures fat and fit. Be the first comment since that spam thing a few weeks back!
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