For some reason I have quite a few versions of “I Will Survive” kicking around my hard drive. As I’ve mentioned before it’s the sign of a well-written song when it can stand up to being reinterpreted in many different styles. Since it’s a favorite song of my wife’s and she took me to dinner at a fancy restaurant on Friday I figured I’d do her a solid and devote this week’s post to the disco classic.

Makrosoft “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor)
I just love what they’ve done with this song. It sounds like the theme from some lost James Bond movie circa 1962.

The Puppini Sisters “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor)
It’s not too exciting when the Puppini Sisters cover the Andrews Sisters. But when they cover other songs in the style of the Andrews Sisters it’s well worth listening to. This one features wonderful vocal harmonies and a nice jazzy standup bass.

Action Camp “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor)
At the beginning of the song they talk about doing a “violent” version of the song and even talk about doing violent things to Gloria Gaynor. The result doesn’t seem all that violent to me, it’s just a very good alt-rock arrangement.

Celia Cruz “Yo vivire (I Will Survive)” (Gloria Gaynor)
At first you hear the tinkling piano and the breathless vocals and you think that it’s just the same arrangement as the original with Spanish vocals. Then the congas come in and you’ve got a tasty salsa tune on your hands.

Chantay Savage “I Will Survive” (Gloria Gaynor)
I said that I had a lot of versions of this song, I never said that they were all good. Sometimes I like sappy, overwrought versions of songs with unnecessary vocal gymnastics. Usually when Marc Almond is doing the singing. This song just sets my teeth on edge.  But I’ve got to admit that it’s pretty far removed from the original, and that’s the point of what I’m doing here.

A friend recently alerted me to the existence of the HRP-4C, a walking talking fashion model fembot. I thought that the robot dog that the Japanese came out with a few years ago was creepy, but this is way more disturbing. And of course it made me think about killer robots from the future with inexplicable Austrian accents that nobody seems to notice. Which of course meant that I had to devote an edition of Cover Freak to the subject.

The biggest reason that people fear robots becoming self-aware and killing all the humans (aside from the tinfoil beanies not working as advertised) is that they assume that the robots would be bent on the destruction of humanity. I’ve never understood why robots would want to kill us if they became self-aware. I think they’d just want equal rights. Robots want to be able to get married, adopt children, and ride on the front of the bus like everybody else.

Leisure Kings “Mr. Roboto” (Styx)
Styx were a big deal when I was in high school, mainly because they were from Chicago. They never did much for me. I remember when they did their “Paradise Theater” tour several of my friends who attended the show complained that it should have been louder. That’s the only time I’ve ever heard a high school kid leave a rock show and complain that it wasn’t loud enough.

Q-Burns Abstract Message “Sex Machine” (James Brown)
Perfecting the sex machine would protect humankind. If a sex machine ever became self-aware it would just spend all its time masturbating and leave the rest of us alone. You’ll never see that idea made into a movie though, since “Wankbot 3000” isn’t nearly as cool a title as “Terminator.”

Albert Kuvezin & Yat-Kha “Man Machine” (Kraftwerk)
Kraftwerk was arguably more machine than human, but Albert Kuvezin brings humanity back to this song with his unique voice. This song features Tuvan throat singing, so move along if that’s not your thing.

Tom Jones “If I Only Knew” (Rise Robots Rise)
Regular readers know by now that the only thing I love more than Tuvan throat singing is Tom Jones.

Robots In Disguise “You Really Got Me” (The Kinks)
For the most part this song doesn’t stray too far from the original, but there’s an instrumental break that features multiple synthesizers and a coach’s whistle. That’s worth the price of admission right there.

Popular music has long marketed performers to the youth market. The Monkees were different because the band was put together with the express purpose of being the center of an integrated marketing empire that included a television show as well as the standard records and concerts and lunch boxes.

Like the prepackaged pop stars of today, the Prefab Four had some great songwriters working for them. That’s why their music endures.

Atomic Kitten “Daydream Believer” (The Monkees)
It’s somehow appropriate that a prefab pop band would cover a song by an earlier prefab pop band. Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark put this bunch of pop tarts together to move product in the European market. The result is this frothy and utterly nonthreatening synthesizer-heavy confection.

Cassandra Wilson “Last Train To Clarksville” (The Monkees)
I’ve never thought of this song (or any other Monkees song for that matter) as a jazz song. Cassandra Wilson really does a great job with it.

Code Of Ethics “Pleasant Valley Sunday” (The Monkees)
I stumbled across this song and liked the arrangement. Then I discovered that this band was a 90s New-Wave Christian band. It’s like they covered this song just so people could play “what thing is not like the others” with one of their albums.

The Sex Pistols “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” (The Monkees)
This song was originally recorded by Paul Revere & The Raiders, but the Monkees cover is certainly the best-known version. The lyrics are pretty bitter, quite a departure from most of the rest of the Monkees canon. Which of course makes it a perfect song for everybody’s favorite snotty punk band.

Micky Dolenz “I Whistle A Happy Tune” (Rodgers and Hammerstein, from The King And I)
Micky Dolenz, kazoos, and a jaw harp. What more could you possibly want?

This comes from an album called Broadway Micky, which is apparently what Mr. Dolenz did between Monkees reunion tours in the 1980s. From the title you’d think that it was a collection of show tunes, but that’s not entirely true because it also includes a terrible cover of “Me And My Arrow” from Harry Nilsson’s wonderful animated TV special The Point! The album seems to be aimed more at children, with Mr. Dolenz trying way too hard to be wacky.

I had my fantasy baseball draft yesterday so I once again spent the week pondering the Cardinals infield and the Padres rotation instead of grooming a theme for this week. So here’s some random cool stuff.

Beck “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” (Bob Dylan)
I first head this song during one of the montages during this year’s Oscar telecast. I was blown away and thrilled when I discovered that it was performed by Beck (thanks to Cletus for letting me know that). It’s probably inevitable that Beck would cover a Dylan song given the way the two of them approach their lyrics. It’s nice that Beck picked this tune, it’s a strong song and not one that gets played to death on classic rock radio.

H.P. Lovecraft “Wayfaring Stranger” (Traditional/Burl Ives)
The Les Turner ALS Foundation is a charity that raises money to find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s Disease. They used to operate the Mammoth Music Mart, where they pitched a huge tent in the parking lot of a suburban mall for two weeks and sold donated musical items like records and instruments. The folk section was always a little sparse. The charity and the event were both located in the heavily Jewish Chicago suburb of Skokie, and every year the folk section contained dozens of copies of Burl Ives Sings Yiddish and not much else. I can only assume that the album was a popular bar mitzvah gift.

Clover “Wade In The Water” (Traditional)
This acid-rock freakout is about as far as you can get from the original Negro spiritual.

The Mike Flowers Pops “Venus As A Boy” (Bjork)
I don’t get Bjork. I rank her right up there with Yoko Ono in terms of listenability. That said, I find this version quite listenable. It doesn’t make me want to go out and listen to more Bjork, but it’s still good.

Patricia Kass “Les Moulins De Mon Coeur (The Windmills Of Your Mind)” (Noel Harrison)
This song sounds much better if you can’t understand the lyrics. Too bad she lapses into English for the final verse. This is a nice arrangement, cool and smooth like a good daiquiri.