Cover Charge #60 - Duran Duran to The Specials

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Shirley Bassey to Duran Duran

From the outset, the goal of this series has been clear - explore a sequence of artist-linked cover versions, and try to end up back where we started. As you may recall, where we started was with The Specials. And how pleasing, to me at least, that I can bring the series to a close on a nice round number, with the sixtieth link in the chain on what would otherwise be an inauspicious day. This cover is a new one on me though; come on, hands up, who here knew that in 2023 Duran Duran released a Halloween-themed album called Danse Macabre? +5 kudos points to anyone for that. Anyway, they really did... and track eight was their Straight Bat rendition of Ghost Town.

No disrespect to Simon et al but, okay though that is, it feels like the subtext of the original has been lost, to this listener at least. But who cares because it brings us back to The Specials! Ouroboros has eaten his own tail! And not only that, but I get to end the series with not just my favourite Specials track of all, but with one of my favourite singles by anyone, ever. I have a memory of taping this off the radio back in 1981 that is so vivid, I can feel the play and record buttons under my fingertips.

And that, my friends, is the end of Cover Charge. Thanks for tagging along - it's been fun, I hope. Who knows, maybe I'll do a second loop around some time in the future when I run out of blogging ideas (which, let's face it, happens often).

I should also acknowledge the excellent SecondHandSongs website, without which this series would have been a lot harder to pull together. But, apart from that, for now...

...that's Numberwang!

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #59 - Shirley Bassey to Duran Duran

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Chaka Khan to Shirley Bassey

This series has thrown up a few real surprises, covers that you wouldn't have imagined if you hadn't heard them for yourself. I think today's is another of that ilk. Dame Shirley clearly felt that, having recorded three original Bond themes herself, she was more than entitled to have a crack at other people's. However, her 1987 take on A View to a Kill was hampered with a poor arrangement and even worse production, which might explain that whilst she mimed it for a TV special (below), Shirley subsequently nixed its release for years.

She did her best but you can tell, I think, that she knows a lame duck when she hears one. Best to leave post-New Romantic synth strings to the purveyors of post-New Romantic synth strings, I reckon. And on that note, here's the corking 1985 original from Duran Duran. I bought this on 7", you know, and it might just be the best thing about the film, apart from Christopher Walken's villain (itself a cover, in a way, of Auric Goldfinger). Fun video too.

Next time: the end.

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #58 - Chaka Khan to Shirley Bassey

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Girls Aloud to Chaka Khan

Like live performances and TV specials, Bond themes provide a rich seam of cover versions (as we have already seen). I guess everyone knows them, they are generally well liked - safe ground for a cover then, right? Especially if you play it with a pretty Straight Bat, as Chaka Khan did with her 2004 reworking of Goldfinger. This was recorded for her album ClassiKhan, in which Chaka ran through a series of covers and standards, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra.

That's pretty good, right? Except the problem with taking the Bond cover pill, especially with this song, is that you're inviting comparison with a well-known and much-loved original. Brilliant though both Miss Khan and the LSO are, no cover of this track can ever measure up to the original by Dame Shirley Bassey, presented here in title-sequence context. Put simply, this is the best Bond theme of them all, from the best Bond film of them all. Enjoy.

Next time: from Cardiff to Birmingham...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #57 - Girls Aloud to Chaka Khan

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Arctic Monkeys to Girls Aloud

If you're a manufactured girl group, fresh from the TV circus that spat you into the arms of Cowell, how do you strive for even a scintilla of credibility? By covering a giant, of course! At least I imagine that was the thinking behind Girls Aloud's straightest of Straight Bat retreads of I'm Every Woman for the TV special Discomania in June 2004. Should anyone care, this was later included on the expanded 20th anniversary edition of their second album What Will The Neighbours Say?

I know, what choreography, right? So let's cleanse our collective palate, and enjoy the 1978 source material from Chaka Khan which, I'm pleased to report, has more views on YouTube than the GA cover. Note also the similar five-part choreography... although all five roles here are Chaka Khan in what must have been fairly groundbreaking video trickery for the day. I guess she was being "every woman"... I'll get my coat.

Next time: from one big voice to another...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #56 - Arctic Monkeys to Girls Aloud

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Tony Christie to Arctic Monkeys

In recent(ish) years, Radio 1's Live Lounge feature has been a rich source of interesting covers. Today's track is a great example, as Alex and his Arctic Monkeys co-conspirators provide a brisk rattle through of Love Machine. They did this on 19th January 2006, can you believe, and by the sound of it had a right laugh in the process.

Never let it be said that New Amusements does not adequately embrace manufactured girl bands; here's the Girls Aloud original, from their second album, 2004's What Will The Neighbours Say?

Next time: girls become women...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #55 - Tony Christie to Arctic Monkeys

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Michael Ball to Tony Christie

Thank goodness for artists who have been around long enough to bring us back towards slightly more recent material every now and then. In 2008 Tony Christie recorded the album Made in Sheffield. Richard Hawley produced it, and it featured only songs written by Sheffield songwriters, and new songs by Tony himself. And that, friends, is how Tony came to cover the Arctic Monkeys track Only Ones Who Know.

The original is from the Arctic Monkeys' second album, 2007's Favourite Worst Nightmare. Here it is, proving that Tony kept a pretty Straight Bat for his cover.

Next time: young women permitted...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #54 - Michael Ball to Tony Christie

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: The Shadows to Michael Ball

After the misery of the last entry in this series, it's time to move back towards stronger material, even if it means a bit of rule bending. For today's cover is actually a collaboration with the original artist... but we have to get off Michael Ball somehow. So from Heroes, his 2011 album of covers and collaborations, here's Michael and Tony Christie, with Avenues and Alleyways.

I don't know about you but I would much rather hear Tony do this on his own, the way I remember it, i.e. as the theme tune to The Protectors.

Next time: chilly simians ahead...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #53 - The Shadows to Michael Ball

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Queen to The Shadows

My biggest concern when I was weighing up whether to do this series or not, even greater than its natural tendency to go further and further back in time, was the fear that I'd have to entertain songs and/or artists that I do not like, just to keep the whole thing going. On a completely unrelated note, today's Cover Charge see the excellent Shadows covering Michael Ball.

With all apologies, here's Michael's original suggestion that Love Changes Everything, from the Lloyd-Webber musical, Aspects of Love.

Next time: even a dark alleyway is preferable to the above...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #52 - Queen to The Shadows

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Travis to Queen

Queen were too busy doing their own thing to record many covers. But their individual members were more productive, thank goodness (for this series). Take the corkscrew-haired astrophysicist and badger-saviour that is Mr Brian May. Like a lot of his guitar-bothering chums, he was asked to contribute something to Twang, a 1996 tribute album celebrating the music of Hank Marvin and The Shadows... to wit, here he is ripping through FBI. It starts out a Straight Bat, but becomes increasingly an Own Stamp.

Here's the original from Hank, Bruce and the lads. I've gone for a live performance, so you can enjoy their trademark "dance" moves.

Next time: this series descends to a new low...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #51 - Travis to Queen

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Glen Campbell to Travis

Travis have always been partial to a good cover version. Here they play with an absolute Straight Bat with their take on Queen's Killer Queen, a B-side to their 2001 single Sing... which is, of course, how we got to Travis in the Cover Charge chain in the first place. This series doesn't just throw itself together, you know.

Lovely though Travis's homage is, the original remains untouchable. 51 years old, and much loved by Amusements Minor, especially for an in-car singalong. Hmm. A 51yr-old song for the 51st Cover Charge post. This series doesn't just throw itse... oh, you get the idea.

Next time: we follow just one member of Queen... but which?

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #50 - Glen Campbell to Travis

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: The Bee Gees to Glen Campbell

As has been mentioned before, the problem with this series is its naturally tendency to go further and further back in time. Last time, we ended in 1961. How to bring it back to something more recent, relatively at least? Well, I don't know about you but one thing I didn't have on my bingo card before starting this series was Glen Campbell covering Sing by Travis, and yet here we are. From his 2008 album of covers, Meet Glen Campbell, this is very much a Straight Bat, right down to the banjo part.

Here's the Travis original, complete with the food-fight video that looks like it might have been a lot of fun to make. Either way, this was the first single to be lifted from The Invisible Band and hit #3 in 2001.

Next time: Fran and the boys commit regicide...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #49 - The Bee Gees to Glen Campbell

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Sparks to The Bee Gees

Well here's an interesting one. We're going so far back in the history of the brothers Gibb that today's track is credited to Barry Gibb and the Bee-Gees. It was their fifth single, and limped to #94 in the Australian chart, all the way back in 1964. To be honest though, even this was progress from just a few short years earlier, when the boys regularly entertained the crowds at the Redcliffe Speedway in Brisbane from the back of a moving flat-bed truck; the crowd would throw money, and the band's fee was anything they could gather up from that, if Wikipedia is to be believed. But anyway, here's Barry and co's take on Turn Around, Look At Me.

I don't know about you but there are parts of that, certain chord progressions, that put me in mind of This Boy by The Beatles. But this series is about covers, not aural similarities, so I'd better reveal the original, an uncredited co-write for none other than Glen Campbell, from just a few years earlier in 1961. What a voice he had.

Next time: Glen Sings...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #48 - Sparks to The Bee Gees

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: New Order to Sparks

Funny one today. From the 2019 expanded re-release of Sparks' superbly titled album Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins comes this curio, Holiday. Vocals are by actress-musician Christi Haydon, who had caught Russell Mael's eye whilst working on a department store make-up counter. To that point, Christi's biggest brush with fame had been playing a semi-regular but uncredited ensign extra in Star Trek: The Next Generation. But she ended up recording an EP with Sparks, and touring with them too. This is a track from that EP, in which she and the brothers Mael have a stab at the brothers Gibb.

Here's the Bee Gees original from their first flush, pre-disco 60s style. Robin takes the lead on this. It sounds more sombre than the Sparks cover... until you get to the "de de de-de" middle eight.

Next time: the brothers demand attention...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #47 - New Order to Sparks

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Moby to New Order

Sometimes, when you're hunting down candidates for links in the cover chain, live performances bail you out of a cul-de-sac. So it is today, as we go all the way back to Milan in June 1982, for New Order's live rendition of When I'm With You.

I don't know abut you but that sounds darker and more urgent than the Sparks version, almost like being with you is not a good thing. By contrast, Sparks' original, taken from their 1980 album Jive, feels an altogether more chipper affair.

Next time: not massive chew-sets, but in that ballpark...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #46 - Moby to New Order (plus a Monday long song)

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Kris Kristofferson to Moby

No playing fast and loose with what constitutes a cover today, oh no. Instead, let's go back twenty years to Moby's 2005 album Hotel and have a listen to the track that closed side one. It's very much an Own Stamp, massively slowing down the driving motorik of the original and turning it into a desperate lament. Moby's not much of a singer, so he wisely ceded vocal duties here to Laura Dawn but even she couldn't prevent this being panned at the time. The Drowned In Sound review called it "unbelievably bad". Harsh, or harsh but fair? You decide.

All of which is the scant excuse I need to wheel out New Order's original Temptation. 43 years old this year, and still sounding brilliant. And as a bonus, it's a Monday long song too. Ambassador, you are spoiling us, et cetera...

Next time: there may be dodgy wiring because I see...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #45 - Kris Kristofferson to Moby

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Rita Coolidge to Kris Kristofferson

I was three links in the chain from the end, honest... but I've had fun doing this, and certain readers (including some long-termers) seem to like the series, so I've replotted my route with all the skill and precision of a seasoned strap-hanger learning of delays on the Central Line. The upshot of all this is that we can string the whole thing out a little bit longer. What do you mean, oh?! Come back...

I've had to bend the rules a little to do so though. So here's a version of Moby and Mark Lanegan's The Lonely Night that features additional vocals from Kris Kristofferson. Critics might say it's not really a cover, it's more of a collaboration, given that the original artists are on the record too. But honestly, my gaff, my rules. So from Moby's 2021 retrospective Reprise, here's Kris adding a world-weary gravel to an already gritty vocal, for what ends up a very, very Straight Bat "cover".

The original, from Moby (Richard Hall, to his mum) and former Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age vocalist Mark, was first released as a 7-inch for Record Store Day 2013, with a fine accompanying video too (below). It was later included on the bald-headed one's album Innocents.

Next time: no rule-bending, even if it is my gaff, however great the temptation...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #44 - Rita Coolidge to Kris Kristofferson

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Pulp to Rita Coolidge

Aside from her Bond theme I don't know much about Rita Coolidge, to be honest with you, except that there was a period in the 1970s when she was married to Kris Kristofferson. It will come as no surprise, then, to learn that not only did she record several duets with him, she also covered some of his songs. Frankly, none of them do too much for me but this - Late Again - is one of the least dull. Rita recorded it in late '75, for her album It's Ony Love.

No surprise to note that this isn't a great departure from Kris's 1974 original, save for being in a different key. I can admit to quite liking the organ, guitar and bassline from the original, which sound like they beyond as backing music in an early episode of Starsky and Hutch.

Next time: incredbily, Kris can get stomped by Obie!

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #43 - Pulp to Rita Coolidge

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Nick Cave to Pulp

I was expecting to have lots of covers to choose from, for this next link in the chain, but no - for a band that has been around as long as Pulp there are surprisingly few covers in its storied history. Luckily though, there is their 1997 contribution to Shaken and Stirred, David Arnold's James Bond project. For me, this is a valiant Own Stamp effort but ultimately feels like less than the sum of its parts. What do you think?

The original, by Rita Coolidge, was the theme for 1983's Octopussy - not Roger's finest outing, though the bad guy who dispatched victims with a circular saw blade sticks in the mind (as does Maud Adams, whose character seemed elegant and exotic to an impressionable teenage boy from out in the sticks). Song facts: the music for this was by John Barry, obviously, but lyrics were by none other than Sir Tim Rice. Co-produced by Phil Ramone too. As Bond themes go, it's borderline insipid, I think, and the record-buying public of '83 obviously agreed: it peaked at #75 in the charts.

Next time: Rita keeps it in the family...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #42 - Nick Cave to Pulp

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Primal Scream to Nick Cave

I remember getting today's cover courtesy of a magazine cover-mount CD. I know some Pulp fans aren't necessarily enamoured with this Own Stamp but me, I was (and remain) quite taken with Nick Cave's waltz-timed take on Disco 2000. Pulp themselves were obviously similarly impressed; long before the CD cover-mount, they'd put Nick's version on the B-side of their single Bad Cover Version, in 2002.

The original needs scant introduction from me. From the juggernaut that was 1995's Different Class, here's Jarvis pining after Deborah. We've all been there, right?

Next time: not the meter maid...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.

Cover Charge #41 - Primal Scream to Nick Cave

Cover Charge is simple: A covers B, B covers C, C covers D and so on, until I loop back to where I started, Ouroboros-style.

Last time: Rod Stewart to Primal Scream

I had a bit of a panic last week. You see, I'd planned out all the necessary steps in this series to get back to where I started, i.e. The Specials. And then I realised I had made a mistake in my planning, and I had no route. I didn't take a look in the mirror but I imagine I gave it the full Munch scream. Cue a couple of days of increasingly frantic research, before coming up with another route. And good news! It won't be a long journey. This series has proved popular with certain individuals, but generally readership numbers are well down on other posts. I don't do this for page views, of course, but neither do I want to bore anyone either. So, let's crack on.

Primal Scream have covered an eclectic range of artists over the years, including The Troggs, Hawkwind, Fleetwood Mac, The Clash and loads more. But I'm taking the Nick Cave path today, specifically with Bobby et al's cover of Worm Tamer, from the extended Extra Light version of their 2013 album More Light. I can't find this on YouTube because of country-specific copyright issues, apparently, so have had to make do with a Spotify embed for those of you who do.

There is, however, a YouTube version of Grinderman playing Worm Tamer live in the RAK studio, back in 2010. If Wikipedia is to be believed, Nick formed Griderman as "a way to escape the weight of The Bad Seeds." Whatever the reason, this is a glorious noise.

Next time: Nick waltzes at the disco...

The Cover Charge "chain" to date.