Three times in as many days I have heard Mdnn*'s cover of “American Pie”, and I can only say WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING?!?!?! Even though I cant stand her music (except for “Ray of Light”), I have always admired her business and marketing sense. But she f***ed up big time with this. I have never heard a bigger piece of crap. Some songs are so associated with one singer that they dont work when anyone else does them, and some songs are so perfect as they are that it’s a sin to do a cover. “American Pie” is both. I cant even get furious, Im too deep in shock.
heh. i’ve been a bit up in arms about this as well. first off, covering a classic is at best a fool’s errand and at worst offensive.
Covering mediocre songs is a low-risk proposition. i.e. nirvana’s cover of david bowies “man who ruled the world”.
actually the ONLY cover of a classic song which i found semi-worthy of a new interpretation was the lemonheads’ cover of simon and garfunkel’s “mrs. robinson”.
Covering a classic, well, you’re just asking for it. My biggest objection to the madonna cover is the fact that she cut out about 80% of the verses. Her version is innocuous crap. but jesus, if you’re going to cover “american pie” at least do the FULL SONG.
I like a lot of her music, but I just can’t feature this. I haven’t heard it yet, don’t want to. I’m intentionally leaving the radio off. I, too, admired her business and marketing sense, but this just seems like a Bad Idea. I cringe when Bad People happen to Good Songs. The first time I heard Courtney Love’s rendition of “Gold Dust Woman” I wanted to hang her by the neck until dead. I can’t even imagine Madonna doing anything to “American Pie” that could possibly be an improvement on the original, or anything besides a disaster.
It was 1972. I was 18, and waiting at the airport. I had just completed a week’s leave after graduating from the Army’s clerk school. I was headed overseas. American Pie came over the loudspeakers at the airport.
“Bye, bye Miss American Pie…”
Madonna’s version is a non-event to me. It could never match the poignancy of that moment at the airport.
It’s Madonna?! It’s MADONNA?! That’s it. I’m going to frickin’ scream!
I heard a wisp of this in the caf last week, over the conversation. I immediately burst out, “Somebody covered American Pie! Oh no! That’s just…just…just…WRONG!!”
And it’s Madonna. That’s it. She’s officially lost it. How could she! That’s blasphemy! Is nothing sacred?!
(Okay, so I’m not really this worked up–close, but not really this bad. But I do think it was a very bad idea.)
Don McLean has long been one of my favorite artists, Madonna one of the least. So I’d been waiting with dread to hear her version for the first time. But it really wasn’t half bad–I’d count it more as a tribute than a rip-off. And it would be nice if this ended up drawing attention to some of Don McLean’s even better recordings, like “If We Try”, “Castles in the Air”, “Fool’s Paradise”, etc.
Also, since this has come up on this board before, “American Pie” was not the name of the airplane Buddy Holly was riding in.
I wanted a pony. Meanwhile, Cecil combats ignorance.
Exactly, dhanson. Remember when she did the same thing with “Don’t cry for me, Argentina?” Not a spectacular song, but simply ridiculous with that silly beat in the background.
I kind of like Madonna and her general aggressive unashamedness, but she seems to be cynically falling more and more into the school of “No song is so good it can’t be improved by a Hammond Organ in the background with the ‘rock’, ‘disco’,‘jazz’, and ‘foxtrot’ buttons all depressed at once.”
Besides, “American Pie” is a song that almost no one could do justice do, after the way MacClean marked it.
The gods of music have a sense of humor:
-For our next trick, here’s Ricky Martin doing “Starry Night”.
-Followed by Harry Conick, Jr.'s new version of “All Along The Watchtower”.
-Finishing up with Celine Dion’s latest cover hit, “Stairway To Heaven”.
I thought it was kind of strange of her to do that, especially after Weird Al did that song about Star Wars and that was a parody of American Pie. What’s up with American Pie? Everybody wants a piece!
I thought she sounded like one of those “Jewel” type singers.
Maybe she’s trying to change her image again.
I have yet to hear it, and will put my fingers in my ears and hum very loudly if I even suspect I’m about to hear it.
This raises an interesting question, though. I really can’t imagine that many people are going to like this song. Most people know and love “American Pie” (believe me I know–as a singer/guitarist, it is third* on the “Please don’t ask me to play that again” list), and will probably see this as the abomination it is. Will we still hear it on the radio ad nauseam? Will it still race to the top of the singles charts? Will it be touted as “Madonna’s popular new hit”, even though pretty much everyone thinks it sucks?
(They did a story in our local paper about it, where they asked several people what they thought. Responses ranged from a few "it was OK"s to “the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard”. No one they asked liked it.)
On the other hand, I can’t help but think of “The Producers”. What if this was supposed to be an intentionally colossal flop, and everyone likes it?
I’m curious to see how it turns out.
Dr. J
(* #2 and #1 are “Brown-Eyed Girl” and “Margaritaville”, respectively)
A quick note about covering classics. All Along the Watchtower has been covered by everyone and their mother. I’m not saying that all of the versions are good, but some of them are better than the original. Certainly, the best version of the song is Hendrix’s, and that was a cover. Granted, it wasn’t a classic then, but it was when U2 did it on Rattle and Hum, and it was when Dave Matthews started doing it.
It’s not impossible to do a good cover of a classic song, but there are basically two qualifications. One: you need to do something different with it. Two: you can’t be Madonna.
The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.
I personally hate the damn original song to begin with, so I’m not as worked up about it. I think of all the poor kids who were 8th graders in the late 70’s and had to listen to their ex-hippie social studies teacher explain to the in great detail the political and social significance of songs like this and Jeremiah was a Bullfrog… echh!
If it makes you feel any better, though, there’s a nice Sonic Youth cover of Into the Groove out there.
Yes! My English teacher gave us the deeper significance about the song, I forget the name, with the line “Four dead in O HI O” about Kent State. CSN&Y, IIRC. To be fair it was a class on propaganda, and one of the more interesting ones in H.S. That’s the perfect time of life to take a propaganda class, with your weltschmerz at full boil.
BTW, Rousseau, my joke was that Harry Conick, Jr. would be doing “All Along The Watchtower” not that someone would do it at all. I mean, pause a moment and imagine it.
