I just caught the video for this and I’ll be damned if it isn’t a pretty good version.
This is not your father’s Styx.
They’ve been playing this a lot lately on WLUP in Chicago as a “Loop Exclusive” - the version they have was recorded specifically for the station. I was impressed as hell. I never had an anti-Styx bias, but I haven’t really been a big fan, either.
Must to check out the video. Sounds good!
Ah, I should have clicked your link before posting. Apparently WLUP did indeed have the original exclusive on this.
Very cool.
You can watch/listen here.
Personally I see no reason for this cover to exist; it’s exactly, note-for-note, the same as the original. The first couple of minutes are, anyway; I got bored after that and stopped listening.
It’s a helluva lot better than Jim Carrey’s version.
Wow!
When did (Canadian) Larry Gowan join the band? Does that mean they’ll do “A Criminal Mind” in concert now? Or maybe his rendition of “Good Golly Miss Molly”? Just him at the piano. Man, it’d flatten ya!
He joined in 1997 after Dennis DeYoung left to battle that light sensitivity thing.
The fact that this cover is a straight forward one makes it all the better.
I don’t really mind Styx, but I too don’t see the point of this cover. It’s too much like the original. If I want to hear the original, I’ll listen to the Beatles.
Let’s see, if they’d done a crappy cover, many people would be screaming for their heads. Instead, they do a pretty good (IMHO) straight cover and are met with indifference.
To each his own, I guess.
I liked it and that’s why I decided to share.
I can see how this would be fun if you were at a Styx concert and they played it. It’s not a bad version, but I agree it’s rather pointless.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.
So the “Cafe Society” rule of thumb is to do note-for-note covers of Pink Floyd songs to avoid ridicule, but if you’re covering the Beatles you better play it differently?
I agree with Yookeroo that this would be better as a surprize in a concert, but I don’t see anything wrong with putting modern instrumentation to a Beatles classic. Refreshes it a bit. Plus it’s Styx, man! Every once in a while I hear a “new” piece from them (concert footage or whatnot), and can’t believe how much less they suck now that they voted DeYoung off the island.
-lv
Ummm…no. I think many of us said that the Scissors Sisters’ campy discoed-out version of Comfortably Numb was at least interesting and had a point, while the other note-for-note interpretations were redundant.
Not by me. I thought the Scissor Sisters’ “Comfortably Numb” thing was pretty clever; I thought it did exactly what a good cover should do. I stayed out of that thread because (a) I didn’t feel like arguing with all the unswayable fans for whom any change is desecration, (b) I got around to reading the thread pretty late, and (c) while I loved the idea of the song and approved of the artistic motivation behind it, I didn’t actually like the song itself enough to get in and start defending it.
I almost threw in a Scissors Sisters joke in my other post. I like their version of Comfortably Numb.
I’ve heard enough, uh, unique, covers of Beatles’ tunes that this song is a welcome change.
At IFilm there is a clip of Paul McCartney butchering “Strawberry Fields Forever”. Look under “Viral Films”.
Yep, that’s a butchering all right.
Yes, am I being summoned?