Waffle

I've had a crappy day, so I need some ukelele music to cheer me up. And so do you.

Commercial release of this was actually pre-empted by EMI in 2003 or thereabouts, because they were expecting a new Kate Bush album really, really soon. Don't see why they bothered.

So I was looking for a cover of 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' by a proggy trio from the Netherlands that I'd seen at around the time I featured Danni Green's version, and I found this live recording from 1989, by a bona fide hitmaking pop group from the era, Hue and Cry from Scotland. It's soulful, though I don't like the sound of the piano much.

This could well be the earliest cover with a male singer, so these guys were breaking new ground.

In a recent interview in Der Spiegel, Kate Bush was asked what she thought about the influence she has on a number of top hiphop artists. Her answer was that she's aware of it, and that she is very pleased with it.

As for me, I was less aware of it, because I don't normally listen to hiphop. I guess the time has come for me to learn — I like this version by John Forté quite a bit, especially because it's such a free treatment of the original, new rapped lyrics and all. It also has a good beat that reminds me of old Eddy Grant singles from the 1980s.

Before starting on this series, I thought it would be much easier for a male singer to do interesting things with a Kate Bush song than for a female singer. Since then, I've been repeatedly proven wrong by several female singers, and by Angra. But this is the sort of thing I was thinking about: without needing to try very hard, Josh Pyke's subdued reading transforms 'Wuthering Heights' into a completely different song.

Ooh, I like this a lot. It's a bit rough in places, but what do you expect? You're not supposed to perform 'Babooshka' as a duo of a bass guitarist and an electric guitarist, swapping lead vocals between a male and a female singer, and with both singers having a French accent. But that's what I like about it. It's spirited, raw and different. And you can't go wrong with a beard like that. You just can't.

I'm not 100% sure about the date, but it seems that Cherhal and Nataf were touring as a duo in 2005 and 2006, so that's a good guess.

Yesterday, I wrote that I was probably going to break down and do the famous covers that people had probably been expecting from the start of this series more than a month ago. But there are just so many covers available, and the range of performing styles is so great, I'm just having too much fun finding new versions. I'll be quite happy if I can delay Placebo, the Futureheads, Maxwell and so on till past the fiftieth episode of this series.

J.P. Nataf's website has a bunch of video's on its front page. Check out his version of 'You Can Call Me Al'.
Jeanne Cherhal's website is prettier and gives a good impression of her music, but it's all in Flash and plays automatically on load, so beware.

After two gnarly covers of Kate Bush songs, it's time to go back to something more conventional, and because I've just had those two gnarly covers, I could muster the patience to listen to this from beginning to end.

I still don't like it much. The singing is mannered and the piano player has no idea what they're doing. On the plus side, Church's heart appears to be in it, and the melody and lyrics are pretty indestructable anyway, but it doesn't have much to recommend it. The reason it's still Kate Bush Cover of the Day is that I want to showcase the range of artists that have covered songs by Kate Bush over the years.

In the next few days I'll probably give myself a break from actively seeking out new cover versions, and just post the famous versions from Placebo, Futureheads, etc. It's gonna be a busy weekend and I could use a few evenings without any YouTube surfing.

While we're on the subject of fucked up covers, this industrial version of 'Experiment IV' by Seven Graylands actually sounds like the sound that could kill someone from a distance. The barking/growling, a-melodious vocals appear to be cut and pasted together and all the instrumental sounds are harsh and edgy. A huge change from Kate's more rounded, understated original.

Compared to yesterday's entry, it's pretty tame, but on the Kate Bush cover spectrum, this is still pretty out there. Background information can be found here, where it confirms that the vocals are indeed cut and pasted together from five or six tracks of takes.

Railcars, "Cloudbusting (Kate Bush Cover)" by The FADER

The Kate Bush covers keep on coming! I was going to feature Charlotte Church's version of "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" but when I listened to it the other day, I found it very uninteresting. Not so with this version of 'Cloudbusting'! It's not pretty - in fact it's one of the weirdest pieces of sonic degeneracy I've heard in a long time (probably not since Ram Samudrala's Twisted Helices album. The Fader, where I found this, calls it "a sea of melted tape and LFO" and adds that "You really hope the sun does come out, because things sound kind of fucked up now." I don't have anything to add to that. It's not going to be for everyone, but it sure is different.

Edited to add: looks like the stream is not available or limited to people visiting from The Fader. Just go there to hear the song, and if you want, you can download it too from the webpage or the Soundcloud widget. It's worth it just to hear it once.

Now this is a lot more interesting! The intro of Danni Green's version of 'The Man With The Child In His Eyes' suggests that it is about to explode into a light techno version, perhaps similar to Opus III's cover of King Crimson's 'I Talk To The Wind' (which I haven't heard in ages, by the way, so the comparison may be completely off) but it instead develops into a pure pop version, mixing electronics, including a moderate level of Autotune, with the original symphonic arrangement. Along the way, it manages to surprise pretty much constantly.

On YouTube, about 1/3 of the people who bothered to rate this, didn't like this at all, probably because the vocals are clearly Autotuned, so you can't tell if Danni Green can actually sing or not. I'm not bothered by this at all - the unashamedly plastic pop approach sets this apart from the pack, and it works as what it is.

It's "Army Dreamers" again! This is what, the fourth version that I've featured? Plus at least one artist who was featured previously has done this song as well. I'm really surprised by that.
From an EP released in 2010, Mary Dillon puts in an outstanding vocal performance, with what is otherwise another straight reading of the song, without major changes to the arrangement. I don't think there's that much you can do with this song, which is what makes it so surprising that so many people are covering it.

(Tip o' the hat to user Looking At Blue at the Homeground and Kate Bush News and Info Forum)