In any business you constantly need to find new customers. Your current customers will inevitably grow old and drop dead. Or perhaps their taste will change and they’ll favor some other product, and they need to be replaced if your business is to survive and grow. The same is true of popular singers, and they’re more susceptible than most to the fickle nature of public taste and trends.

There are a few ways for a more mature singer to make himself relevant to a more youthful audience. You can go the Frank Sinatra route and record duets of your biggest hits with popular young musicians. You could just completely change your musical style and start playing whatever’s trendy at the time. The most frequently used approach is to record the hits of the day in your own style. Sometimes it works and sometimes, well, you be the judge.

Paul Anka “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)
The original is one of those songs that changed everything. It led to the strip-mining of the Seattle music scene and clueless record execs unleashing a horde of awful bands in flannel shirts upon the land.

The mark of a great song is that it stands up to reinterpretation in pretty much any musical style. I’ve got 20 covers of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” arranged as everything from a techno rave-up to a tango. Then there’s this. Mr. Anka has no feel for this song at all, to him it’s just another schmaltzy Vegas lounge number. Who thought that young people (or old people for that matter) would want to hear this?

Pat Boone “You Got Another Thing Comin'” (Judas Priest)
Maybe I just have more affection for Mr. Boone, but this schmaltzy Vegas lounge number is more convincing. I get the feeling that he actually read the lyrics. And I love the sax solo. This is from his album In A Metal Mood, which featured him covering (mostly) metal songs.

Muddy Waters “Let’s Spend The Night Together” (Rolling Stones)
Muddy Waters was much beloved by the psychedelic guitar gods of the 60s. So some record exec decided that he could sell Muddy’s records to the kids buying all those records by Cream and Jimi Hendrix. But he didn’t think that those kids would want to hear electrified Chicago blues. So this record exec got a bunch of anonymous studio musicians to wank away at some “psychedelic” blues while Muddy sang his hits. And a Stones tune for some reason. Listening to the record I get the impression that the musicians never met Muddy, let alone performed with him.

The album Electric Mud might have justifiably been forgotten if not for its bizarre popularity as a source of samples in the hip-hop world.

Ethel Merman “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (comp. Irving Berlin)
The Ethel Merman Disco Album. There can be only one. I admire that title for its simplicity and truth in advertising. I hope that poor Ethel got paid well for this hot mess. She really puts her back into it, belting out the lyrics over a throbbing disco beat. This one is particularly weird for its attempt to keep a Dixieland flavor to the song.

The Art Of Noise Featuring Tom Jones “Kiss” (Prince)
But sometimes it works. This was released as an Art Of Noise record, but it marks the point in time where the incomparable Tom Jones became relevant to a generation of young hipsters. He attacks the song and makes it completely his own. Whenever I listen to the original version it sounds hopelessly lame and dated.