No one sings like you anymore

June 20, 2016 12:41 PM

Black Hole Sun covered by Postmodern Jukebox and Haley Reinhart.

PMJ previously

posted by Johnny Wallflower (31 comments total)

Black Hole Sun covered by Steve and Eydie

Black Hole Sun covered by The Moog Cookbook
posted by pipeski at 12:48 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Paul Anka's version.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 12:51 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

Take home points:
1. Haley Reinhart. Damn.
2. Soundgarden didn't just write really good rock songs, they wrote really good songs.
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:17 PM on June 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

Her cover of Creep lived in my head for weeks after we saw PMJ last year. Wow. A

And this one is also glorious.
posted by rtha at 1:24 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

This was great. Ranks up there with All About that Bass. Which is a family favorite.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:35 PM on June 20, 2016

The PMJ cover of Sweet Child of Mine featuring Miche Braden is awesome.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:35 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

PMJ's good, but Steve and Eydie really can't be beat here.
posted by timdiggerm at 1:36 PM on June 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

Came in here to point out the Paul Anka version, and can see that Orange Dinosaur Slide beat me to the punch.

But that's the version to listen to, in my opinion, to hear it done in a classic swing/jazz style without the affectations and kitschy faux-old-school vocal stylings of the PMJ/Reinhart treatment.
posted by slkinsey at 1:52 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Loved it, loved it, lost me around the middle, caught me again, loved it again. It's all personal taste anyhow. Well, that and definite talent.
posted by comealongpole at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2016

Paul Anka link isn't working here in UK. The Steve and Eydie version flirted with parody until the female vocals came in and I suddenly realised how badly I want to hear Cerys From Catatonia sing stuff from Superunknown. Anyhow, appreciate the links.
posted by comealongpole at 2:31 PM on June 20, 2016

Um, Cibo Matto was first out the gate with their 1995 WTF bilingual French/English version.
posted by larrybob at 2:52 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

OOH OOH! Can they do Fell On Black Days next? Pleeeease?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:11 PM on June 20, 2016

Black Hole Sun vimeo covered by Steve and Eydie

this remains the one in my time capsule
posted by philip-random at 4:28 PM on June 20, 2016

Black Hole Sun covered by Nouela and featured in the Liam Neeson crime thriller movie, A Walk Among the Tombstones.
posted by fuse theorem at 4:52 PM on June 20, 2016

I never heard the original. So I can't appreciate how far any of these versions diverge from it. But taken as a Steve & Eydie or Paul Anka song, it seems like a rather slow and repetitive number. But that young lady singing with Post Modern Jukebox -- wow! She can drive a song.
posted by Modest House at 5:00 PM on June 20, 2016

That is actually pretty good.

All such threads should also include a Richard Cheese reference, of course.
posted by gimonca at 5:11 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I am still so traumatized by that video that I still can't make it through the song 22 years later.

Now i feel old and creeped out.
posted by Requiax at 5:44 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Paul Anka link isn't working here in UK

Canada either. I don't think you understand. He's from here. He's from my hometown. I used to have to travel down Paul Anka Drive to get to my father's old house.

Never thought I'd be mad at a lack of access to Paul Anka's songs but here we are
posted by Hoopo at 7:44 PM on June 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

PMJ's 7NA cover is freaking awesome.
posted by forforf at 7:56 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's an alternate Paul Anka link. Hopefully it's not restricted.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 8:35 PM on June 20, 2016

I had been kicking around the idea of doing the PMJ thing for a while before I saw PMJ. Getting frustrated that us Jazz musicians were generally getting ignored I saw the value in Scott Bradlee's work and decided to put together a group to perform the concept locally. We try to steer clear of anything PMJ has done but Scott Bradlee is an astroturfing bastard and I swear he releases an new album every 72 hours--so we do our own version of a few he has done and we have done some that he ended up doing later. The challenge is finding things that work, and avoiding things that are already there (Bjork's "Quiet" is already atavistic, so why do it? No Stevie Wonder because all Jazz musicians already do Stevie). Popular ones have been "Danger Zone" in John Lee Hooker, "Girls And Boys" using the "C Jam Blues" Riff, "I Want You To Want Me" as Chet Atkins, "She Bop" in the Style of Cab Calloway. Tonight I've been working on Power Station's "Some Like It Hot" a la Peggy Lee's "Fever".

One thing we strive to do is to re-imagine each song in a specific historical style, rather than just falling back on a generic "Lounge" or giving in to the crutch of a Bossa (because everything becomes a bossa really easy).
posted by sourwookie at 9:14 PM on June 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

PMJ's good, but Steve and Eydie really can't be beat here.

This glitch in the matrix is freaking me out a bit.
posted by pashdown at 9:44 PM on June 20, 2016

But taken as a Steve & Eydie or Paul Anka song, it seems like a rather slow and repetitive number. But that young lady singing with Post Modern Jukebox -- wow! She can drive a song.

I've always taken it as song of horror, with the original Soundgarden video driving home the point. This is the suburban dream gone to melting, synthetic hell. Which makes the Steve + Eydie re-imagining my ultimate go to, because like a good David Lynch dream sequence, it just keeps sinking. Put it with the Soundgarden video and it all achieves a certain evil symmetry.
posted by philip-random at 11:18 PM on June 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

... and finishing my thought. I just don't get that horror from the Post Modern Jukebox version.
posted by philip-random at 11:20 PM on June 20, 2016

The song holds up for me melodically/harmonically -- a big step above average 3-chord pop rock songwriting (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Lyrically, though? You can see that Reinhart can't really connect an emotional through-line to the lyrics. For instance:

In my shoes, a walking sleep
And my youth I pray to keep

...starts with her pointing at her shoes and then ends with her putting her hands in a prayer gesture. It's cutesy/gimmicky/literal.
posted by HeroZero at 6:12 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some people sure do! Check out Larkin Dodgen doing her own song (and everything else she and Josh and all their friends do).
posted by fritley at 7:26 AM on June 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks, fritley. That gives me hope for the Kids These Days.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:56 AM on June 21, 2016

Lyrically, though? You can see that Reinhart can't really connect an emotional through-line to the lyrics.

I felt the same way. The tune works because the changes are sophisticated enough to carry a jazz interpretation, but the lyrics fall squarely in the rock tradition of Angsty Nonsense (proud though that tradition may may be).

Marvelous voice, though.
posted by ducky l'orange at 12:59 PM on June 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Amy Winehouse would have nailed this. Thanks, it's lovely
posted by soakimbo at 7:03 PM on June 21, 2016

but Steve and Eydie really can't be beat here.

Okay that's better.
posted by phearlez at 5:57 AM on June 22, 2016

All such threads should also include a Richard Cheese yt reference, of course.

As much as I love his work, man that dude is a tool. I am still blocked on his FB page (which seems to mean I still see posts but can't ever comment) from years back when he was on a tear about other people "stealing his act." I think it was Jimmy Fallon, who'd dared to do one of the many musical things he did in a lounge style. So Davis is ranting about it and talking about all the times he was on the late night show done by that scab from MTV and just being insufferable and insulting.

I commented "I don't get why you're this mad at Fallon for a one-off but not pissed at New Morty Show, who were so devoted to stealing your style that they were willing to go back in time two years before your first album and do it."
posted by phearlez at 6:17 AM on June 22, 2016 [1 favorite]