Before I get started on this rather ominously-titled missive, I ought to point out that I'm no fan of The Kaiser Chiefs. A bunch of distinctly average rock musicians from somewhere inconsequential in Yorkshire averagely bemoaning the average person's tendency towards averageness is possibly the most tedious thing I could imagine, so they in no way deserve any credit for lending me a song title for a post aimed largely at taking the piss out of them. Mockery is no more or less than they deserve, and the same goes for anyone else who goes around bemoaning the state of things and, yes, that probably includes me as well. My status as a largely inconsequential arse has not gone unnoticed.
My complaint is aimed at the sort of people that caused the huge furore over Alexandra Burke's getting the Christmas no. 1 with a cover of Jeff Buckley's 'Grace'. While I accept that Buckley's interpretation is probably the best, the fact remains that it wasn't his bloody song to begin with, and I'm sure there wasn't this sort of fallout when Buckley himself decided to copy it off of Leonard Cohen, or when the several dozen other singers who have covered it before or after Buckley decided to belt out their own versions; Burke's version was pilloried by certain sections of the press and public because it became the scapegoat for a certain set of people who like to make themselves feel big and clever by insisting that everything has been done before and anything that ever gets on the telly must be by extention complete tosh. These people are hilariously wrong.
Yes, an awful lot of pop 'covers' have gone dreadfully awry; Gareth Gates' version of Unchained Melody was easily the worst of the 500 different versions Wikipedia claims have been recorded over the years, and the Sugababes once did something so awful to 'Are Friends Electric?' that it was all I could do to not stab their eyes out with a fishknife, but can the self-elected musical elite please accept that Alexandra Burke can sing and as Leonard Cohen is now 74 and Jeff Buckley has been dead for a decade, neither of them are likely to turn up and assert their rights over it - one probably doesn't give a toss and the other drowned trying to kiss a duck; they are both done and through. Just be thankful that whoever owns the rights and have dished them out so willingly haven't turned them over to McFly or Eminem, and stop making that terrible bleating noise about her trampling all over Buckley's dead face or whatever it is she's apparently done.
I say this not because I'm a fan of Alexandra Burke, though she has got a voice on her and she's obviously infinitely more attractive than Buckley after ten years in the ground, but because if I hear one more loudmouth banging on about how Buckley is proof that the original is always best, I'm going to eat my own shoes. 90% of the people complaining about the terrible wrong Burke has inflicted on the music industry are completely in the dark that Buckley didn't write the bloody thing in the first place. I mention that because I know that, and I know it not because I'm some sort of musical elitist, but because I'm not an idiot. You're not an idiot, are you?
Yes, an awful lot of pop 'covers' have gone dreadfully awry; Gareth Gates' version of Unchained Melody was easily the worst of the 500 different versions Wikipedia claims have been recorded over the years, and the Sugababes once did something so awful to 'Are Friends Electric?' that it was all I could do to not stab their eyes out with a fishknife, but can the self-elected musical elite please accept that Alexandra Burke can sing and as Leonard Cohen is now 74 and Jeff Buckley has been dead for a decade, neither of them are likely to turn up and assert their rights over it - one probably doesn't give a toss and the other drowned trying to kiss a duck; they are both done and through. Just be thankful that whoever owns the rights and have dished them out so willingly haven't turned them over to McFly or Eminem, and stop making that terrible bleating noise about her trampling all over Buckley's dead face or whatever it is she's apparently done.
I say this not because I'm a fan of Alexandra Burke, though she has got a voice on her and she's obviously infinitely more attractive than Buckley after ten years in the ground, but because if I hear one more loudmouth banging on about how Buckley is proof that the original is always best, I'm going to eat my own shoes. 90% of the people complaining about the terrible wrong Burke has inflicted on the music industry are completely in the dark that Buckley didn't write the bloody thing in the first place. I mention that because I know that, and I know it not because I'm some sort of musical elitist, but because I'm not an idiot. You're not an idiot, are you?
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