Tune du Jour: “A House is Not a Motel” – Love
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes: Crystalline vs. The Hellacopters vs. Robert Plant
Everybody’s Dressin’ Funny … Cover Me Impressed!
Read it in the Sunday Papers:
India’s government has hired 40 monkey impersonators in a desperate bid to scare off the real monkeys that are terrorizing the country’s parliament. Hundreds of macaques roam freely around government buildings in Delhi, attacking bureaucrats for food and chewing through Internet and phone cables. To frighten off the macaques, officials recruited a team of “very talented” monkey wallahs (or specialists), who will dress up as more aggressive langur monkeys and hoot and shriek at the smaller simians. ‘It’s not a bad way to earn my bread and butter,’ said one of the wallahs.”
The Original
Love:
THE CLASH of Cover Tunes
Crystalline vs. The Hellacopters vs. Robert Plant
Crystalline:
The Hellacopters:
Robert Plant:
Oh the disharmony! Much like Harlan County there are no neutrals here. It is your solemn responsibility to decide which cover song prevails. In other words … Which Side Are You On?!!?
cover me impressed 
Never heard of Crystalline, but it’s interesting to hear female lead vocals. Also features kind of a hazy, low-fi sound that appears to be from late ’60s or early ’70s. If they happen to be a latter day band trying to sound retro, they achieved their goal pretty well. They get today’s vote.
The Hellacopters version wasn’t bad, maybe a bid thrashy and aggressive.
Surprised to find out Robert Plant covered this, and it’s interesting to hear such a familiar voice attempt a song that’s an old favorite of mine, although a different genre from what Plant is usually known for.
The female vocals in Crystalline’s version wore a bit thin. And since the song seemed to go on way too long, that was plenty of time for it to wear very thin.
The Hellacopters’ version is dynamite. I love the guitar force, and think the vocals propelled the song along very nicely. The 2:49 time is perfect for this song; exactly what it needs.
Robert Plant’s version bored me. I think he’s capable of singing this song much better. But the instrumentation is particularly pathetic and unable to inspire Plant to sing more urgently. DO these guys even want to be playing this song? They sure don’t sound like it to me.
Hellacopters win this one going away.
These are some obscure options. I have never seen this Plant bootleg. In 1999 he joined with Kevyn Gammond whom Plant played with prior to Led Zeppelin to play mostly folk songs they were influenced by in the old days. The others were enlisted by Gammons from contacts in music education at Kidderminster College. Very underwhelming. The Helicopters are a Swedish band attempting to combine the Detroit MC5/Stooges sound with AC/DC and Moorhead. They should be sued. Crystalline are a British psych band that recorded an album’s worth of material in 1970 which almost nobody heard. But they get my vote.