nina gordon - "straight outta compton"

donut, I'm not talking about mash-ups. I'm talking about acoustic covers of electronic and rap tracks which are just the most cloying thing known to man. They're supposedly "clever" and "reveal" the hidden qualities of the "real" song blah blah vomit.
-- Spencer Chow (spencercho...), January 20th, 2005.

mark, I am totally playfully muckraking here. Obviously, a lot of people don't like the cover of the song in question. Fine. I'm just amused by all the quasi-political baggage that everyone is emptying onto the whole issue, when other artists whose covers of same song we respect are on the same level, culturally/class speaking, as nina gordon.

Spencer, why are acoustic covers of hip hop/electronic songs automatically "clever" or "oooh, revealing"? Maybe someone just likes the song, and covers it, you know?

I could care less for the "Bizarre Love Traingle" cover. But I never once though "Oh, they're just trying to cover it in a different style to stand out or something". How come nobody was equally outraged on a college radio level when Poi Dog Pondering did the same thing with NO's "Love Vigilantes"?

* which, for the record, is hardly 'outrage'.

why can't a straight reading of poetry include the original words?

well, context is key here, and the lines between the contexts are very blurry and up for vastly different interpretations for each, I'll agree. Had this been an original song where she used the n-word, I would be far more suspicious and likely offended, I admit. but since we all know she is covering a song, she's using the n-word because the original song used it. if she changed the n-words, I would personally be more offended, because then she would be projecting her personal politics into the cover, whether PC or not. And surely, that would have caused FAR more outrage in this thread if she had done that than leaving the n-words in there.

What are the Stephen Malkmus or Stephin Merritt rap covers?

Malkmus doesn't need covers, he's got ironic rap originals under his belt (At Home With The Groovebox to thread)

~ Horseshit. I like and own albums by both NWA and Veruca Salt.

"mark, when you're rapping along to something at home, do you sound a bleep or substitute an inoffensive word such as "knitter"?
-- noodle vague (noodle_vagu...), January 20th, 2005 1:43 PM."

~ No, but then again, I don't post MP3s of myself using potentially touchy language on websites with no explanation.

"and come to think of it, now that he's a rich rapper and making multimillion dollar movies, Ice Cube himself is not even entitled to do that song anymore, as it no longer represents his situation. How does that sound?
-- King Kobra (doctorduc...), January 20th, 2005 1:16 PM."

~ Like the makings of an irrelevant and ridiculous straw man.

"NWA are political in a sense so loose that it's virtually meaningless."

~ Maybe you weren't around when "Fuck the Police" was being editorialized on throughout the media?

No problem. I'm just a little mystified (in general with listeners, not just you, Spencer) when projections are placed upon the motives of the artist for covering a song in a style that happens to be in a completely different genre, when the listeners don't really know what the motives for covering the song were/are. That issue just never phased me and still never phases me. If i like the cover, i like it. If I don't, I don't. And that's where I leave it.

What about Pavement's cover of The Fall's "The Classical" and the elimination of said n-word in the cover? Was that a travesty? Or a smart move?

[xposts galore]

dc... At some point in the near future you should bring your best Kid of Widney High impersonation to my studio, and we will record this. The b-side will be our Faux Kids of Widney High cover of the Chili Peppers' "Suck My Kiss."

We will make a mint selling these as downloadable tracks online!

Maybe she only did the first verse cuz it's the most 'powerful' (ie, memorable) one? I mean, the Kid 606 remix is also only the Ice Cube verse, nobody complained aboot that (I actually preferred it that way, cuz I didn't hafta hear him ruin the whole song). (xpost)

No. It's a slightly different word, spelled and pronounced differently.

THE PROBLEM is that she is pronouncing the word as 'Niggers'. Which is something that no one does without getting looked at funny, regardless of whichever race you happen to be. The fact that she's white and saying this makes me flinch.

But you do realize that Dre was strapped with gats when you were cuddlin' a Cabbage Patch, right?

I think you mean "wearing eyeliner"

Context, once again. Look at those list of songs.. they all seem to be songs that were big in the year 1988, 89, or 1990 or so... Skid Row? Cinderella? NWA? All huge in a very small time period. To me, I think she just chose songs she remembered from a certain time in her life... I don't know how old she is, but it must have been "a time" for her, or something. So, her choosing to cover NWA seems to (and I stress "seems to") stem from that moreso than "I'm going to be controversial, fuck yeah, niggaz!". Then again, I don't know. You don't know. She may have had the worst motives for covering the song. The point is..: we.. don't... know. So, some of us will assume the worst, some of us will be suspicious, and some of us will not be so suspicious. I'm in the latter category. I guess you're in the middle category.

I have absolutely no concern about what her intentions were to cover the song. The end result is the problem and I've explained why enough I think.

Of course you don't have any concerns about it, because you don't know her intentions (unless you personally know her, which I'm guessing you don't :) ). But I'm just musing on how listeners in general (and I used to be guilty of this, too) listen to the "end results" -- a listener's first listen of a cover -- and then often automatically make assumptions about the motives for covering the song that go beyond "well, we, uh, like the song." Not singling you out, Spencer.. a lot of people do that, but I don't. Maybe I'm just the anomaly here.