Prototype 2 Game Trailer, featuring a song by Johnny Cash: Colour me bored.

Sorry for the link bait in the title. Haven't had a 'hit' in a while.

As for the TV ad I'm referring to... I'm so tired of it being played ad nauseum. Doesn't make me want to play at all. The web trailer is way worse though, and I'm venturing into cranky old man territory when I say "is this the kind of crap that passes for games these days?" A topic for another day, for sure.

In any case, the TV spot, which has been playing during ad breaks on sports shows lately, features Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt".

Check out a great live rendition of the original here - best enjoyed in full screen:

^ that was a killer tour.

It's also not the first time that Johnny Cash has lent himself to a commercial.

Reminder: this was a real, actual thing that aired on television, and not a comedy sketch.

Gimmicky cover song

My friend Josh sends me this link for a video that I apparently missed but 45 million other people didn't...

The thing that bugs me about these videos is that they set it up to make it look like they're playing it "live" in front of the camera. Not that it should be a big surprise or anything, but they're not. They're playing to a backing track. The vocals sound too clean and the mic placement doesn't match the tone of the voices.

As for the song itself... meh. I have no problem with gimmicks or goofy songs, but there's no wink or nudge with anything this band does, it's all so earnest. They're all very talented musicians though, I'll give them that.

Time for a cover moratorium - "Heroes"

With Peter Gabriel releasing a covers album that features a version of Bowie's "Heroes", I'm reminded of Leonard Cohen asking for a moratorium on covers of "Hallelujah". Obviously you'll never stop people from recording your awesome songs, but this is getting ridiculous. I'm a massive Bowie fan and a pretty big Peter Gabriel fan, but I gotta tell ya, after the disappointing TV on the Radio version last year, I'm not so sure even my favourite artists can do this song justice. I think I'll leave Mr. Gabriel and his covers album alone.

And Davey, can you please ask for a moratorium on "Heroes"? Thanks.

Check out the ever growing list here. This list of course, only mentions the more notable covers... let's not get into the countless bar band versions screeched out every Thursday night.

[The Official video] (Get ready for chills)

Daft Punk samples

Some of these are spot on, and some of them... er... well, listen for yourself. Nice attempt at least.

Bye, bye, media

Theme Music for the Death of the Media

Pretty funny, epic parody set to the tune of Don McLean's "American Pie".

*tear

Always a good time for a Depeche Mode cover

My friend Matt helped produce this band's big debut LP. Winhara, originally from Bracebridge and now residing in the Big Smoke, play solid indie rock, kinda sounding like The National/U2/Coldplay. They're also the nicest guys you could ever meet.

This track is one of their live staples.

Kanye North

It looks like we've found ourselves someone eager to take on the long-discarded cover-crown of Pat Boone.

Colin Monroe is a Toronto based singer whose new single is an anemic take on Kanye West's brilliant "Flashing Lights". Mr. Monroe's version provides the spoonfuls of sugar to soften the track up enough to sell it to middle school suburbia, the perfect Pat Boone formula: The song retains only the catchy hook, and covers it with a delicious white fudge coating.

Toronto's Yonge & Dundas Square gets served up with a moderate helping of cheese, in the form of a Blade Runner/LSD trip treatment, and an entirely expected "flashing light" motif.

Overall, the video does exactly what it set out to do, because now you know who Colin Monroe is. Who? Exactly.



On the YouTube page, the song is listed as a "Remix", which serves as a solemn reminder of just how stupid people are.

It's not a remix. It's a cover. A remix takes elements from the original and re-interprets them. This is more of a re-marketing.

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Links:

Kanye West - Flashing Lights

I'm a weirdo

I will always defend the greatness of Prince, despite (and perhaps because of) all his eccentricities, but the Purple One should put down The Watchtower and pick up a copy of Wired.

That whole thing about suing YouTube and its users for posting his intellectual property was pretty bad, but now he's taking the time out of his busy schedule of purifying himself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka to block his performances of other people's songs... Namely, Radiohead's "Creep", which he added to his live repertoire at this year's Coachella, ostensibly to endear himself to the festival's young audience.

According to this article from Billboard, "Thom Yorke said he heard about Prince's performance from a text message and thought it was "hilarious."

Intrepid YouTube users continue to post the video, so here's the infamous performance at Coachella. The video totally sucks but the audio is actually not that bad for a bootleg.

Maybe if the artist formerly known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince would cool it with the legal action he could stick to what he does best, playing the fuck out of the guitar... which is what he's stopping people from seeing. Doesn't make much sense to me.

Relying on each other, ah ha

The other day I tuned in to The Hour just in time to see Canada's indie sweetheart Feist get the interrogation of a lifetime from Strombo.

Of course, the first thing I did when the commercial break hit was run over to the computer, bring up the Arts & Crafts website, and listen to "Islands in the Stream". Whoda thought one of the highest selling singles of all time would make such a great indie rock gem, and early candidate for song of the year?

Then it occurred to me that this isn't the first time that Feist has covered/ co-covered a #1 hit song written by the Bee Gees... yes, "Inside Out" was also a Gibb-penned classic!

The way things are going, the next Broken Social Scene album could have a cover of Frankie Valli's "Grease". If we're lucky.

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Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers - "Islands in the Stream"

Bangers and Mashed

Mashuptown.com - Best Mashups of 2007

My favourites on the list are "Lugosi's Mongoloid Loser" and "Don't Stop Believing In Planet Rock".

Here comes your ghost again

Judas Priest turning Joan Baez's Diamonds and Rust into metal power ballad gold.

Presidential rocks!

From boingboing:

George W. Bush sings R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"

George H.W. Bush sings Queen's "We Will Rock You"

The actors change, but the play is the same. It's stunning to think about how little things have actually changed in the past 15-20 years, despite the obvious technological advancements.

Young covers

There's an excellent feature article this week over at Stylus magazine, a thorough look at just about every Neil Young cover there is. What really caught my attention was the fact that Nicolette Larson's minor hit 'Lotta Love', is indeed, a Young cover. It turns out she was his backup singer. You learn something new every day.