I'm Yours - Jason Mraz Cover with Brendan Kennedy

Any song with a vaguely "island" beat kinda drives me crazy. I think it was my freshman roommates who played Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffett for an entire year that drove me away from that tropical sound. So when I'm Yours became the song I would hear in every store in NYC, it was my personal nightmare. It sounds like a song that has actually been in the collective consciousness for years, like that version of Over The Rainbow by Israel Kamakawiwo`ole that gets used in every commercial and touching scene on ER. That one also drives me crazy.
I guess what I'm really trying to say is I have a huge craving for Buffalo Wings and can't concentrate on finding something pithy to say about this song. I'll try later ...signing off!

Kenny Mellman

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: I'm Yours - Jason Mraz Cover with Brendan Kennedy

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS: U + Ur Hand - Pink Cover by Carmine Covelli

This song is one in my hidden list of super pop songs that has a really kick ass drum track that I love. The straightforwardness of the drum playing style. The use of a cowbell (which I chose not to use in my version). The long snare rolls. The strength and anger in her singing. But also her sense of comedy. It's a complete package. My version was created using the infamous Yamaha DD65 drum machine, Neal's bass and my vocal chords.

I first met Cheech, her official nickname that she insisted I use, many years back when I was helping my friends Candyass play a VMA afterparty at some weird event space in Manhattan. They had opened for her on tour and since I was in their crew that night, I got the royal treatment. I think she came out later and surprised the crowd with a performance and I remember vividly that Wayne from The Flaming Lips was there snapping photos of himself with a huginormous camera.

My only complaint is that she now spells her name P!nk, which makes it difficult when trying to quickly dial up one of her kick ass jams in iTunes. Thanks for everything Cheech. You are NOT dead!

– Carmine

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: U + UR Hand - Pink Cover by Carmine Covelli

Love Story - Taylor Swift Cover by Jim Andralis

I never meant to fall in love with the music of Taylor Swift. It just...sort of...happened. I heard her singing "White Horse" on some awards show and knew I wouldn't be able to resist the allure of her new record for long. So I bought it and just love it.

Taylor and I still have some things to work through- that surprised look she gets whenever people applaud after she performs a song, for one. Her blowjob mouth expression she makes in every picture, for two. Maybe she and I will meet someday when we're both visiting our Eastern Pennsylvanian hometowns and I can set that girl straight.

With my guidance, she's sure to be a success!

Jim Andralis

Tell 'Em - Soulja Boy Cover by Neal Medlyn

Hi. It's me, Neal, again.

Today's number is my cheap-keyboard cover of 'Soulja Boy Tell Em' by Soulja Boy Tell Em from the album iSouljaBoyTellEm.

One take, folks!

Punk rock!

I really think too much about this Soulja Boy Tell Em fellow. Not a hundred percent sure he goes by that full name but I like it so that's what I say his name is. I also sometimes spell the first word 'Souljah' in a nod to Sista Souljah who I had a crazy crush on in high school, without bothering to try and make any of that add up or listen too carefully to anything she said. It was enough for me that she did the intro to that song of Public Enemy's that may or may not have called for the murder of John McCain way back in 1991.

OK, I'm sure that's not what the song was about, but, like I say, I was deeply into my fantasies and not so meticulous about making sure they matched up with reality.

Anyhoo, Soulja Boy!

He's the ultimate American figure in many ways and this song is a brief treatise on the constant replacement and radical forward-ness of American pop culture. 'Get out the way, old shit, I'm 18 and I made a lot of money and 'if you ain't respecting that, then tell me what are you respecting?'' The contstant teenager that is America, always shouting and making mistakes and fucking shit up but somehow managing at the same time to be brilliant.

I mean, of course America does a bunch of horrible shit and this isn't some gooey eyed rethinking of America because of Barack Obama or something. This is what I like about America no matter who the president is or what wars we stupidly start or how many of our citizens we fuck over in blatant contradiction of what we supposedly stand for.

Fuck Prop 8!

Despite all that, there we are, there our culture is: standing up and dissing the old, re-inventing the new. We're not arguing over whether something is French enough or building more and more memorials to shit we did wrong like the Germans.

We're 18 years old with our name on our shades, standing onstage with the gall to declare that we're the best.


Long Live Soulja Boy!

NM

PS - Special thanks to Brendan for telling me the tidbit that Soulja Boy looks at himself in the mirror before going onstage and says "Soulja Boy, tell 'em. What? The Truth." The hubris!!

PPS - Special thanks to Andrew Dinwiddie for also, in addition to Brendan, preaching the gospel of Soulja Boy to me. I was and am too much of an old fart to have the audacity to have some of the above opinions. But again, that's why I'm an American!

PPPS - A poem from Our Hit Parader Ada Calhoun from 2000:

"Ode to America"
We do lots of bad things.
We are like a big-haired girl in a tight shirt at a party.
We cannot be stopped.

PPPPS - Long Live Soulja Boy!

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD:Tell 'Em - Soulja Boy Cover by Neal Medlyn

If You Seek Amy - Britney Spears Cover

If You Seek Amy - Britney Spears Cover

The powers that be in the world of radio have deemed this song to be too racy for the airwaves, so they have forced Britney's record label to re-release it as If You See Amy. What do they have against the letter F? But honestly, without the phrase spelling out FUCK, the song makes no sense. Everybody wants to FUC Amy? And who the hell is Amy? Amy Carter?

Kenny Mellman

Click to Download: If You Seek Amy - Britney Spears Cover

MEDLEY MONDAYS- Rehab- Rihanna/Amy Winehouse Cover

MEDLEY MONDAYS - Rehab-Rihanna/Amy Winehouse Cover

    Okay okay, this will be the last medley that is of two songs with the same title...I swear.

    As it moves closer to the end of the first month of this project I am realizing how hard it is to come up with (hopefully) inventive ways to cover songs.  I plan in the coming months to move from Garageband to Logic, so production will improve.  I also plan to move around stylistically.     So expect a Ska or Industrial cover version of a pop hit soon.  

    I saw Rihanna open for Kanye outside of Philadelphia.  A few friends and I decided it was a good idea to get lawn seats and rent a car and drive there.  The only hotel we could find was near the airport.  it turned out that some school was having their prom there the night we arrived.  the outfits were CRAZY!!!  CRAZY!!!!  

    The next day we arrived at the arena and realized that we were all anywhere from 10 to 20 years older than the rest of the audience.  It was a high school gangbang to the left of us, and a junior high fingerbang to the right of us.  Rihanna was okay but Kanye rocked it.  When he just laid on stage whilst Journey's Don't Stop Believing played over the soundsystem, I fell completely and totally in love.  

     I've never seen Amy Winehouse perform but I have smoked crack (once... years ago out of a coke can... one word...boring) so I feel like we are kindred spirits...

Kenny Mellman

    

Click to Download: Rehab - Rihanna/Amy Winehouse Cover

Mr. Carter - Lil' Wayne Cover by Neal Medlyn

GUEST POST BY NEAL MEDLYN

So this afternoon I started working on my spoken word album. It is spoken word versions of all the songs on "Tha Carter III", Lil Wayne's unbelievable recent album. This is the second track from that album, a duet between Wayne and Jay Z on the original and in this version, a duet between myself and Apple Talk, the ins and outs of which I was schooled in by the wonderful Mr. David Neumann on a recent and relatively wild week in Vermont.

I know Vermont doesn't seem like a place to have a wild week, but we should've known a hotel bed was going to get broken when we decorated the room with a giant fold out of Grace Jones.

In its lugubrious way, I feel like this version is about being on the road doing the show business because I think about Brendan Kennedy mouthing the 'Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Bettlejuice' part when we were cruising around Portland Oregon and I also think about drinking remarkable amounts of whiskey with the cast of David's dance and sliding down hotel stairs.

Perhaps I have said too much.

Anyway, thank you for listening and see you at Our Hit Parade this Thursday!

Neal

Click to Download: Mr Carter - Lil' Wayne Cover by Neal Medlyn

Heartless - Kanye West Cover by Clint Michigan

GUEST POST FROM CLINT, MICHIGAN

Just like every over cover Amy and I have attempted, we haven't realized how well written a song is until we break it down and make it depressing!! Rather than go the white people attempting to rap route, we have chosen to take out most of the homies (all but 1), the yo's, and the quick "hey's" that Mr. West likes to throw in the beginning of verses. This is all in an attempt to remain dignified. We recorded in my bedroom and Jaime's(piano) bedroom and try to make it very lo-fi so you can't tell that I can't really sing!


love,

Clint, Michigan


CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Heartless - Kanye West Cover by Clint, Michigan

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS -Like a Virgin Cover with Bridget Everett

So for Flashback Fridays we have a live track for the first time!  Bridget and I used to do this cover in our show At Least It's Pink before it became an all original musical.  Bridget recently sent this to me and even though it is live and has a story in the middle of it that may or may not make sense, I think it has an energy to it.  I'm not a Madonna fan but then again, I'm sure she didn't write this song.  Hold on a second....Yup, just looked it up...Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg are the only writers listed.   I guess this was before pop stars rewrote one word and put their names as one of the composers so they could get publishing fees.  Oh to live in a more innocent time!

Kenny Mellman

Click to Download: Like A Virgin - Madonna Cover with Bridget Everett

La La Land - Demi Lovato Cover

   So the star of Camp Rock and a rising Disney product puts her two cents in on fame.  It seems like the self-reflective single is the new black.   Lily Allen, Pink, etc.   It seems to me a bit silly to be owned by Disney and talking about how awful Hollywood is treating her.   C'mon Demi!  Mickey Mouse never complained! 

Kenny Mellman




Click to Download: La La Land - Demi Lovato Cover

My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson Cover

Click to Download: My Life Would Suck Without You - Kelly Clarkson Cover

UPDATE:  Please Re-download.   Put up early version by accident!  Also, you can just listen to the covers in the player at the bottom of each post.  Okay, back to Lost

    Unfortunately it is American Idol time again!  Unfortunately because I have to admit that though I should not be watching it, I am. Last night there was a particular woman who auditioned who made my brain explode.  She had a folder of notes and things she found on the computer about the proper way to sing gospel music.  She never bothered to learn how to say the words on the papers though so she was chock full of malapropisms.  Her best line, after a horrendous audition, was that she must have been singing "out of the wrong rectum"!  Kelly Clarkson would never have said such a thing.   Instead she comes out with this song.  Leave it to Kelly to have a pop hit (went right to number one on iTunes downloads today) with a song that uses the word dysfunctional, and the line 

"I know that I've got issues, but you're pretty messed up too"

It is sort of a Free To Be You and Me song.  

"I like what I look like and you're nice small, we don't have to change at all"

except in Kelly's song the guy has already left her for her prettier friend but now she dumped him and  he's coming back to Kelly for more.   Kelly doesn't think there is anything wrong with taking him back.  Poor Kelly.

Kenny Mellman

Circus - Britney Spears Cover

Click to Download: Circus - Britney Spears Cover

    Inauguration day.  Would love to feel all the hope in the world, but with Rick Warren and all I am feeling a bit skeptical.   So Britney it is!  Everytime I think we've heard the last of Britney, she rises again.  She is like Jesus, who I think was mentioned and invoked too many times at the inauguration for my taste.  But seriously, you think Britney has just about gone down as far as a person can go, and then she pops back with a track like Circus, that seems to be one of the most remixed songs of the year.  All hail Britney!

Kenny

Medley Mondays:I Kissed a Girl - Jill Sobule/Katy Perry Cover

Click to Download: I Kissed A Girl - Jill Sobule/Katy Perry Cover

Medley Mondays! I'm sure I'm not the first person to combine these two songs with the same title. I hadn't listened to the Jill Sobule version since it first came out. It actually holds up pretty well. But why not replace the chorus in that one with the chorus from the Katy Perry version?

Kenny

My Girls - Animal Collective Cover

Click to Download: My Girls - Animal Collective Cover


Homemade Saffron Marshmallows and a dog barking at her reflection in the slow cooker all day makes Kenny rush through a cover. Great song but only got two minutes of it done...


Kenny

Pussy Monster - Lil' Wayne Cover by Neal Medlyn

Click to Download: Pussy Monster - Lil' Wayne Cover by Neal Medlyn


For today’s pop song, Our Hit Paraders, I propose this SAT style syllogism. This guitar bit I wrote in the 90s. I liked pussy then. Lil Wayne was alive in the 90s. Apparently, he likes pussy. He wrote the words to this song. I like this song. I recorded this cover. Therefore, Lil Wayne likes my pussy.

Neal Medlyn

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS! My Life - Billy Joel Cover with Bridget Everett

Click to Download:My life - Billy Joel Cover by Bridget Everett

Guest Post by Bridget Everett!

my life.  my life?  my life??

laid-off this wednesday.  the zipper closed wednesday.  and i killed my computer.  but that's ok.  next week, i'm getting my ovaries partially removed and going on unemployment.  see?  things are looking up.

got me thinking back in the 80's... when life was good....when i was swimming for the manhattan marlins.  i had a crush on one of my team mates.  robin wilcox.  he was super cute, really fast and a reeeeaaally nice guy.  i wasn't really sure if he liked me back.  so at swim meets i would put billy joel's "honestly" on my head phones, eat a box of jello and stare at him.  i don't think he ever figured it out.  

Bridget Everett

Smell Yo Dick - Riskay Cover with Bridget Everett

Click to Download:Smell Yo Dick - Riskay cover with Bridget Everett

What is there to say?  This song should have been a top hit of 2008 but the language and subject matter made that impossible.  Riskay tried to put out a 'clean' version called 'smell that chick', but that didn't do anything for the song or Riskay's career.  The balls out vulgarity carries the song.  

Kenny Mellman

    

The Zipper Factory is closed and we are sad

Found out today that the Zipper Factory has had its doors closed. It is a truly sad day for New York City and for Our Hit Parade. The Zipper's staff was so warm and welcoming, so supportive and well, just plain fun. So to everyone who worked at the Zipper, a big big big big hug. Thank you for everything from the sound to the drinks and everything else in between. Kenny, Bridget and Neal will miss you.

Whatever You Like -- TI Cover by Lady Rizo and Moby

Click to Download: Whatever You Like - TI Cover by Lady Rizo and Moby


On special days ourhitparade.com gets a track made in a real studio! Taking a break from working on their own music, our friends Lady Rizo and Moby laid down this cover

Guest post by Lady Rizo

I first heard this whimsical gem when TI performed it as a live video shoot with a miniskirted busty vide-ho in hand on the VMA's. A single cam shot captured detailed sets of the ultimate 2008 courtship ritual: bling bling at cartier, fur jacket at a swank store, and then of course bringing her to a club -bottle full of bub- and then home to bang her in the bentley. romance.

Then these 7th graders at Ron Clark Academy in Hotlanta did a interpretation of the song entitled "You Can Vote However you Like." They were featured on Good Morning America doing this song and very adorably detailing platform differences between McCain and Obama. I'd hope to see those chil'ren at a future Our Hit Parade, but I think they change too many words. They chose the song themselves and I find it comforting that 12 year olds are equally inspired by lyrics such as

late night sex, so wet, you're so tight.

I suggested to Moby that we do this song and upon listening he agreed whole-heartedly, and wrote to me a little blackberry haiku (poetry majors: i know it is the incorrect amount of syllables for a haiku. Get a job.)

Lyrics are fucking inspired
It should be called
'territorial pissing.'
Moby

"i like it because it is a song that promotes gender equality and higher education."
-moby

Gives You Hell - All American Rejects Cover

Click to Download - Gives You Hell - All American Rejects Cover

One of my favorite songs is Jonathan Richman's Hospital.  In the song the narrator walks down a street where his ex-lover lives and finds he has tears in his eyes.  Gives You Hell seems to present the viewpoint of the ex-lover, who hopes that when his ex walks down the street, she feels nothing but pain, like in the original version of The Little Mermaid where if she drinks a potion to become human, it will feel like she is walking on knives for the rest of her life.  Of course, the All American Rejects add a chorus of fratboys and it all ends up sounding like it is trying to hard to become an anthem for freshmen across the country.  The best anthem is the song that becomes one over time, not the one that is created to be one.  We Are The World is a terrible anthem,  Common People is a grand one.  

Kenny Mellman

More Fun in The New World/Wake Up America - X/Miley Cyrus Cover

Click To Download: More Fun In The New World/Wake Up America - X/Miley Cyrus Cover


It's Medley Monday!
Went to Joe's Pub last night to see John Doe and Exene from X perform an acoustic set. Boy was it amazing! They were both in fine voice and the acoustic arrangements of the X and Knitters songs were perfect. Some idiot at the bar kept screaming out "More Fun in the New World". They never did sing it but they did sing "See How We Are" which was much maligned when it was released but over time, it is a song that has since become a classic. Last night they sang it with just an acoustic guitar and it was magical. I had tears streaming down my face. I loved X so much that back in San Francisco I tried to have my friend Rob carve an X in my arm. It all went horribly wrong and today I have a scar of half an X on my arm. Oh, and Miley Cyrus kinda rocks. In a totally different way.

Kenny Mellman

I love college: Asher Roth cover - with Brendan Kennedy

I love college - Asher Roth - Cover Kenny And Brendan

It is hard to believe that this song is one of the most downloaded songs in the universe.  It makes me think of a boy I dated in San Francisco who was in the closet and in a frat house.  He once had me climb into his room through a 3rd story window to spend the night and then got so freaked out that I was in the frat house that he made me climb back out and go home.  Ahh college!

ps. i love Taco, love brendan.

Cookie Jar: Gym Class Heroes Cover by Neal Medlyn

Click to Download: Cookie Jar - Gym Class Heroes Cover by Neal Medlyn

I really and truly thought, and was correspondingly scandalized, that this song said “i like girls, they like me, they look so good when they 17.”

Also, I wonder if Fergie wakes up with cold sweats when she thinks of this style of vocal line and says “My God, what have I done??”

Neal Medlyn

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS ! Unpretty - TLC Cover with Bridget Everett

Click To Download: Unpretty - TLC Cover with Bridget Everett

Flashback Friday - Back to 1999!

It is sad that the death of Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopez makes it impossible for me to enjoy the memory of TLC on some TV show describing when she took her boyfriend's sneakers, put them all in the bathtub and lit them on fire. Twice. Unfortunately the second time, it was a fiberglass tub and the whole house went up in flames. The expressions on the other two TLCers faces as they described it was priceless.

Kenny Mellman

7 things - Miley Cyrus Cover by Neal Medlyn

Click to Download: 7 Things- Miley Cyrus Cover by Neal Medlyn

Guest Post by Neal Medlyn

I watch a little bit of Hannah Montana pretty much every night now. Just five minutes or so. I like thinking of it as a five minute sitcom, something that is programmed to pop up while I am flipping through channels. I like to think of some smart computer programmer coming up with a way to monitor the speed with which I’m flipping channels and once I reach a certain velocity, a little five minute slice of pre-teen Disney sitcom pleasure floats on to my TV.

Jackson: (in a crazy voice) It’s like takin' candy from a stanky baby!

I wait for the sure-to-come “Full House” level punchline, laugh really loudly, and drift off to a happy sleep.

Just Dance - Lady Gaga Cover

Click to Download: Just Dance - Lady Gaga Cover

I once was at a party and got cornered by a friend's new boyfriend who's entire artistic expression seemed to be taking photos of the light shows at Circuit Parties. For a good hour I was forced to look at albums of picture after picture of blurry light shows. WITH NO PEOPLE IN THE PICTURES! Just pictures of light on ceilings and walls. There were hundreds of these pictures, if not thousands of them. Like a 1970s family vacation slideshow with the reluctant neighbors brought over to watch - with the anticipation of perhaps, a key-party to follow.

The last time I stepped foot in Club Uranus in San Francisco, an awesomely insane queer club in the 90s held at the End-Up, a straight girl in white pumps vomited on my coat just as I got it out of coatcheck. Her boyfriend just nodded as if it happened all the time. End of an era.

I once received a mix-tape ( i know, how quaint) from an ex-boyfriend which consisted almost entirely of songs from the Pet Shop Boys. Now I like the Pet Shop Boys, I like West End Girls more, an all girl Pet Shop Boys coverband, but the Pet Shop Boys are awesome and having met them a couple of times, lovely guys. But the songs on this mix-tape were all from the late period CD Nightlife. "Vampires", "Closer to Heaven", "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk" etc. These were intermingled with Coil, Cindytalk, that sort of thing, When I next saw my ex I asked him what the tape was about, as I didn't really understand why he gave it to me and his exact quote was "Take 5 or 6 Ecstasy tablets and the secret messages will come out". He was going to the Roxy a lot in this period of his life.

Lady Gaga's legend is that she was at every club in NYC at once, absorbing everything about the underground club scene. Now I personally have never seen Lady Gaga anywhere, but still...from Arthur Russell to

"Where are my keys? I lost my phone, phone" ??????????????????????????????

Kenny Mellman

Take A Bow - Rihanna Cover by Jim Andralis and Larry Krone

Click to Download: Take a Bow - Rihanna Cover by Jim Andralis and Larry Krone

Guest post by Jim Andralis and Larry Krone

Jim: I first heard this song in my rental car in Michigan.
Larry: Oh, I didn't know that (put that in there).
Jim: I thought it was so beautiful and sad, so I bought it and learned all the words...
Larry: And forced me to listen to it (put that in there).
Jim: Larry thought the song was "a little mean." I disagree. Or I think her meanness and posturing are covering some real hurt. Poor Rihanna.
Larry: Yes, poor Rihanna.

Video : Wake Up America - Miley Cyrus by Neal Medlyn at Our Hit Parade at the Zipper!

The Fear- Lily Allen Cover

Click Here to Download: The Fear - Lily Allen Cover with Brendan Kennedy guest vocals

Perhaps the most insensitive moment in a pop song this year comes in this new Lily Allen track. And I think that is what makes it pretty genius. Here are the opening lines:

I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
I want loads of clothes and fuckloads of diamonds
I heard people die while they are trying to find them

Zero in on that last line. And read it again. What????????? Nothing else in the song reaches the blasé absurdity of that statement.  It is an awful song lyric that scans terribly and seems worthy of Britney at best.  What makes the song soar though, is that we finally have a pop singer again who has no problem dealing with their own celebrity failings. And within a song.  Courtney Love was a master of this particular strain of self-reflectivity but her music was a bit far from pure pop, Malibu being the best exception.  

Lily Allen goes for the purest of pop mixed with a commentary on celebrities that doesn't shy away from her own, well, 'issues'.    

I think she has once again given the world a reason to watch her, and not just for her next mental breakdown in front of paparazzi.   

Kenny Mellman

p.s. - "i totes had fun---love brendan"

Mrs. Officer - Lil Wayne

Click to Download: Mrs. Officer - Lil Wayne Cover by Neal Medlyn
Guest Post by Neal Medlyn!


Today’s cover of Mrs. Officer by the inimitable Lil Wayne is entirely Kenny and Brendan’s fault. Well, actually, Kenny, Brendan, rose wine, vodka sodas and Brendan’s flip camera footage of a wonderful place called The Enchanted Forest near Portland, Oregon. I recorded this between 2 and 3:30 am after a long evening of the aforementioned. It was recorded in my bathroom. In said bathroom there was a Scrabble towel, a grey towel, an issue of New York magazine, a bottle of Mr. Bubble with a T-Shirt offer, a small bottle of baby oil and, at the time of recording, me with no shirt on. Oh, and a laptop.

love,

Neal Medlyn

Beyoncé - Radio

Click Here to Download: Radio - Beyoncé Cover

I used to be a crazy Van Morrison fan. When I was 19 I saw him 10 times in one year. He once did a residency at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. 4 nights. I went to all 4. At the beginning of the third night, some girls were in the balcony drinking and generally being loud. Van yelled at them to shut up and tried to continue the concert. During the third song he was trying to bring the band down, way down, way way down, a skill that no one could do as well as Van. The girls continued to talk and in the middle of the song Van yelled "Shut the fuck up!", left the stage and never came back. I felt sorry for the people who only had tickets to that one show particularly since the next night's show was one of the best I ever saw Van perform. The thing is, the song Van was playing when he walked off the stage was "Real Real Gone" which includes the lyric:

And Sam Cooke is on the radio
And the night is filled with space
And your fingertips touch my face
You're a friend of mine
And I'm real real gone


And during live versions of this song he would go on and on about listening to the radio growing up in Ireland and how it was this window into the world outside of Belfast with the glorious sounds of Sam Cooke, Mezz Mezzrow, Ella Fitzgerald and many many more coming through the airwaves.

Flash forward to 2008 and Beyonce Sasha Fierce Knowles puts out Radio, her version of that song.

I think I'm in love with my radio
Cause it never let's me down
And I fall in love with my stereo
Whenever I hear that sound

But she never mentions what she is listening to on that stalwart radio. Not to get too meta, but is she listening to herself sing Radio?

Kenny Mellman

The Killers - Are We Human?

Click Here to Download: Are We Human? - Killers Cover

First cover of the year. The Killers? Really? Wrote them off as a U2 knock-off. Heard this song on the radio and at first thought it was Pulp-like which is high praise indeed from an old-school Jarvis fan like me. I think now that it is more Blur-like but either way it certainly has that big Brit-pop anthem feeling. I also enjoy the syntax of "are we human? Or are we dancer?". It seems like a big important set of questions, but really I have never once since hearing this song, seriously pondered what Brendan Flowers was trying to say. Not once. And the rest of the lyrics are equally opaque.

Example:

"will your system be all right
when you dream of home tonight?
there is no message we're receiving
let me know is your heart still beating"

Anybody? Is he singing the song to Wall-E? Are we all robots? Is it a Blade Runner homage? Is English his second or third language? Hmm....


Kenny Mellman