Genre Bending

Got a CD recently, just for fun, called “Bluegrass Forever.” It’s rock songs done in instrumental bluegrass style. I imagine that the track list isn’t copyrighted, but if it is and the mods remove it, it’s at http://cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=1075978635/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/popsearch.html/clickID=tn_srch_txt

  1. Till The Morning Comes (?)
  2. The Fireman (George Strait)
  3. Paint it Black (Stones)
  4. Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You (Zeppelin)
  5. Already Gone (Eagles)
  6. Whipping Post (Allman Bros)
  7. Angel From Montgomery (Prine)
  8. Sleeping Bag (ZZ Top)
  9. Wide Open Spaces (Groobies/Dixie Twits)
  10. You Got Lucky (Petty)
  11. Melissa (Allmans again)
  12. Song Remains the Same (Another Zep)
  13. Born to Run (The Boss)
  14. Small Town (John Cougar Melonhead)
  15. Annie’s Song (Deutchendorf)
  16. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (CSN)

Any other interesting genre shifts? Another that comes to mind is “Merry Axemas,” a heavy-metal instrumental Xmas album: http://cdnow.com/cgi-bin/mserver/SID=1075978635/pagename=/RP/CDN/FIND/album.html/ArtistID=VA-MERRY+AXEMUS/ITEMID=490404

A Classic Case - Jethro Tull songs performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. (The station I worked at referred to it as “Freight Elevator Music”.

Common Thread - Various Eagles songs performed by country music artists

There is also a GRP album whose title I cannot remember which is various Beatles songs performed by GRP jazz musicians.

In the last decade and a half or so, many country stars mined past rock hits for boomers whose tastes have changed over the years. Most are covered fairly straight up with the exception of guitar parts in which uptempo country licks are substituted for the rock licks (though sometimes the changes are pretty minimal.)

One nice example was Pam Tillis’ cover of Jackie deShannon’s 1964 Searchers hit “When You Walk In the Room”

No doubt country fans can come up with a dozen or so others

when i was in high school, i bought a cd that was a bunch of punk bands covering rem songs. i think it was called surprise your pig, or maybe it was salute your pig. it was pretty good though, but i lent it to someone and never saw it again. damnit!

I have a cd of classical Led Zeppelin songs.

Well, there’s Apocalyptica, a cello quartet that does covers of rock/metal music. (I really like their version of Fade to Black, but that’s neither here nor there.)

I also have a CD somewhere called Stone Country, which is a bunch of country artists doing Stones covers. I picked it up in a bargain bin and am not such a big fan.

Heigh Ho, Mozart is an album of Disney songs done in the style of various classical composers. The track list:

Colors of the Wind (from Pocahontas), in the style of Dvorak
Heigh-Ho! (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), in the style of Mozart
Beauty and the Beast, in the style of Rachmaninov
The Second Star to the Right (from Peter Pan), in the style of Tallis
Under the Sea (from the Little Mermaid), in the style of Joplin
I Wanna Be Like You (from Jungle Book), in the style of Villa-Lobos
Can You Feel the Love Tonight (from the Lion King), in the style of Tchaikovsky
With a Smile and a Song (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), in the style of Chopin
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? (from the Three Little Pigs), in the style of J. Strauss
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes (from Cinderella), in the style of Grieg
Main Street Electrical Parade, in the style of Vivaldi
Feed the Birds (from Mary Poppins), in the style of Brahms Little April Shower (from Bambi), in the style of Handel 14 Winnie the Pooh, in the style of Prokofiev
Prince Ali (from Aladdin), in the style of Bartok
When You Wish Upon A Star (from Pinocchio), in the style of R. Strauss

It’s a pretty good album overall.

There are a few albums with the title “Moog Cookbook,” I’m not sure if that’s the name of the artists or the compilation or what. Anyway, they’re Moog-heavy versions of rock & pop songs. The versions of “Whole Lotta Love” and “Born to be Wild” are particularly good. (I think that the “Born to be Wild” was used in line at Disneyland’s Rocket Rods ride, in a stop-motion film of 60’s San Francisco that was a lot more fun than the ride itself.)

My all-time favorite covers, though, are the Cardigans’ light jazz versions of “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and “Iron Man.” Hearing her matter-of-factly declare “I am Iron Man!” in that happy, breathy voice just cracks me up every damn time.