We all know the “unplugged” fallacy—that singing someone
else’s well-known song slower and acoustically will unearth new, deep
meanings. Suuurrre it will. What’s most depressing about this idea,
besides how easily it afflicts the well-meaning well-off, is that this
stuff is usually so po-faced precious you just want to hawk a loogie at
it.
But what if the song was fairly precious to begin with? Take John
Mayer’s “Free Fallin’ (Live at the Nokia Theatre)” (Columbia). If
Tom Petty is, as Simon Reynolds drolly put it, “a louse on Dylan’s
scrotum,” Mayer is merely Dave Matthews’s cuter, funnier, more cadlike
younger brother, and here he takes a song that was pretty full of
itself to begin with and simpers it up but good. Well, not “good,” but
you see what I mean.
The Last Shadow Puppets—the side band of Arctic
Monkeys’ Alex Turner and the Rascals’ Miles Kane—at least make
the attempt to rouse the listener with their version of Rihanna’s
“SOS” (MP3), recorded in session for Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 1
show back in April. They do so, unfortunately, by indie-ing it up:
dragging the tempo, adding organ and skittering guitar, whispering some
lines “spookily,” and making the whole thing “menacing.” Good thing
they did, too: Now people who never listen to actual pop music can
pride themselves on knowing it can contain, whaddaya know, “dark
undertones.” Wow, dude.
At least they didn’t do Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” But who’d have
imagined the preceding song to achieve multiple-cover ubiquity, Gnarls
Barkley’s “Crazy,” would actually benefit from yet another
remake? Especially since it’s by Violent Femmes (Secret Life
Of), a band that haven’t done anything of real note in a
quarter-century. But maybe Gordon Gano’s agitated whine and folk-punk
strum just needed better songs than the ones he’d written since VF’s
debut to make us care, and now he’s found one. Everyone else found it
two years ago, of course. But Gano sounds thrilled about it, and with a
cover version, that can make the difference.