If the electric qualities essential to a good hard rock song can’t be reproduced or replaced by acoustic guitar, then it’s better off left plugged in. If the song mainly depends on:
electronic SFx
bone-crunching heaviness
then it won’t work unplugged without the banshee squeals or two-ton tessitura.
But if the song’s essence is mainly chords, then acoustic can do it justice, in the right hands. Although even acoustic guitar power chords, if miked and pickupped and mixed just badass right, can pulverize a cranium or two. It’s capable of just as crisp an attack as an electric guitar.
Patti Smith’s acoustic cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” remakes the song into a sinister slow burn. It’s like she brought out some essence that was always inherent in it behind the distortion.
And speaking of Tom Petty, Melissa Etheridge’s acoustic cover of “Refugee” actually works well, it’s a note-for note tribute to Petty, who is one of her main inspirations. She drove it with the power inherent in acoustic chords, because as hard rocking as the song is, it’s built on chords and riffs that sound good on a well-miked acoustic guitar.
I’m not so sure about the last statement. A band I was in quite a while ago did acoustic versions of some heavy tunes. We did Fairies Wear Boots and War Pigs by Black Sabbath and they worked quite well. FWB worked really well as the bassist used a stand up bass and the bass line for that tune is all over the place. War Pigs worked because the singer was an awesome acoustic player and she kept the tune going with some smoking rhythmic work. She totally kicked my ass on acoutsic.
Although I am no expert on rock music, I would argue that Eric Clapton’s unplugged version of Layla counters many of the OP’s claims. The original is (IMHO) a quintessential hard rock song, heavily dependent on screaming electric guitar riffs, and yet the Clapton was brilliant enough to reimagine it as a sort of shuffle blues, perfectly suited to a new acoustic arrangement.
I like both versions equally well as two sides of a classic coin.
Probably not on many of your iPods, but Five Finger Death Punch does The Bleeding acoustic - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mGzPHsiR8g on their tour of Best Buy stores promoting their CD.
That’s so funny! In the other thread, David Lee Roth’s own acoustic version of “Jump” was criticized as “horrifying” and “should never have been allowed to happen.” I wonder how the Aztec Camera version compares to it.
In the Baroque era, pieces of music composed with a particular instrument in mind were routinely transcribed for other instruments. It allowed the music to be heard from different points of view, as it were. In rock’s electric>acoustic transcriptions, I hear some of the same playfulness and exploration as in Baroque tradition. Although when Bach played a cello sonata on the organ, or vice versa, they were still all acoustic instruments. To cross over the sonic gulf between electric and acoustic is a much more challenging and perilous trip.