The Five Worst Covers of All Time According to Me

Disclaimer: In the interests of preserving my faith in humanity, I prefer to believe that the five truly worst covers of all time have either been forgotten or were never heard by many people to begin with. This, therefore, is a list of the five worst covers that have managed to wedge themselves into humanity's collective memory.

5: Jem – Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul McCartney)

At first listen, this cover appears to be totally innocuous. Comparison to the original, however, shows Jem's version to be weak, boring, and lacking in vocal talent. “Maybe I'm Amazed” as McCartney intended it is a work of good, solid rock and roll. This cover never gets off the ground. Between the irritatingly breathy vocal, minimal acoustic arrangement, total absence of dynamics, and consistently dirge-like tempo, Jem's cover is exactly the right sort of music for lighting some candles, eating a bottle of Vicodin, and taking a nice hot bath.

4: 311 – Love Song (Robert Smith / Simon Gallup / Porl Thompson / Roger O'Donnel / Boris Williams / Laurence Tolhurst)

Another apparently innocuous cover, this is on my list mainly for the same reason as Jem above: it's a flaccid abortion of an arrangement that completely fails to pay homage to anything but itself. 311 get so caught up in being all groovy and dubby and ska that their massive ego trip sucks all the soul out of the song. The Cure's success with the original was a smashingly great pop song with very personal, honest lyrics. None of that shines through in 311's cover. Instead of a timeless wedding gift from a songwriter to his bride, we hear mediocre generic reggae glossed over with a positively snide-sounding lead vocal.

3: Limp Bizkit – Behind Blue Eyes (Pete Townshend)

If the concept of failure could be distilled into something tangible and capable of making noise, it would sound like this. A forcibly pitch-corrected vocal with disingenuous delivery and some clichéd and unimaginative synthesizer arrangements are the misdemeanor charges in my indictment against the aptly named Limp Bizkit for this travesty. The much more obvious felony here is the murder of one of The Who's best bridges and the desecration of its corpse.

2: Scissor Sisters – Comfortably Numb (Roger Waters / David Gilmour)

And now, on a lighter note, some amusing electro-schlock. Really, this cover is barely even recognizable as “Comfortably Numb.” The first few seconds before the excessively falsetto vocal sound like they were sampled out of the intro of “Run Like Hell.” The iconic guitar solos have been omitted, and I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. It is very confusing indeed to hear one of the saddest songs from The Wall turned into a chirpy upbeat mix that would sound totally inappropriate anywhere but in a dance club.

1: William Shatner – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (John Lennon / Paul McCartney)

Four words: Captain Kirk vocal delivery. I really shouldn't have to say any more than that, but I will. This rendition is so bad it's hilarious. It could also be classified as musical blasphemy and as psychological warfare.

The Problems of the World, and How to Solve Them!

There is a type of machine called a Von Neumann machine, and it has one primary function. Anything else it does can be considered a byproduct of performing its primary function. The primary function of a Von Neumann machine is to make more Von Neumann machines. Okay, kids, now give me a description, in a single word, of what a Von Neumann machine is.

Stupid? That's subjective.

Pointless? Maybe.

Recursive? For sure.

The word I'm looking for here is... life.

Life is the Von Neumann machine. This applies to everything from us humans to the bacteria living in our shit.

But we humans are special, or at least we like to think we are. Maybe there are other forms of life like us, and we just haven't met them yet or haven't yet figured out that they're like us. The thing that makes us special is that we can choose not to reproduce. Through sheer force of will, we can break our programming as Von Neumann machines. That's pretty cool ain't it? Except for one little detail...

Most of us don't.

Why do I say this? Well, simply put, it's because there's at least eight billion of us living on this planet. And this figure keeps growing. Eight. Fucking. Billion. I don't know about you, but I can't fully comprehend how many that is. Sure, I can wrap my head around it mathematically; it's eight times the ninth power of ten. But I can't produce an emotional response to a number with that kind of magnitude. You probably can't either.

Here's some more food for thought. For most of us eight billion people, life really sucks. And I don't mean the "I'm an overworked, underpaid, too-old virgin" kind of sucks. I mean the kind of sucks that neither you nor I will ever experience. I mean the shitty kind of life where you've barely got enough to survive, you spend your whole day working your fucking ass off for some slave driver (literally) who doesn't give a shit whether you live or die, and if you're lucky, you get a shack to sleep in and some barebone rations of a very poorly balanced diet.

Why does life suck like this for so many people? Well, there are three main reasons:

1. Large population
2. Limited resources
3. Monopoly of the vast majority of the limited resources by a very small minority of the large population.

Number 3 is the most important, the most overlooked, and sadly, the least escapable of these. Humans are greedy bastards. How did the ones on top get there? Read a history textbook for that one. This is a philosophy essay. Why are humans such greedy bastards? Because we're Von Neumann machines. "The more easily all of you fuckers can go and make more of yourselves, the harder a time I'll have of it," compute the machines on top. "So, I'll do what pappy did, and what grandpappy did, and so on, and keep depriving you of as much resources as I can, all the while enslaving you. That way, you'll spend so much time working for me that you'll only have enough time left over to keep reproducing my disposable workforce. Then I can reproduce as much or as little as I want, have myself a sole heir, and train my heir to rinse and repeat when I finally snuff it for some damn rich bastard reason. So please understand, it's not about having more for me, it's just about having less for you."

Number 2 is pretty self-explanatory. Mother Earth is just one planet. Her renewable resources can only turn over at a limited rate, and she can only give so much. We can conserve resources, and we should, but even that only goes so far.

Number 1 is the clincher. The larger a population is, the more it feels the effects of the limited resources. So, where does our large population come from?

Babies.

But where do babies come from?

Fucking.

That's right. The human population is so fucking large because and only because we are Von Neumann machines and most of us do not break our programming as such. But why don't most of us break our programming, even though probably all of us know that doing so would make life suck so much less for everyone?

The answer is "because life sucks." When your life sucks, even trivially so, you seek entertainment as an immediate remedy. Also, the easiest way to make a human do something is to turn it into entertainment. We are Von Neumann machines. Our primary function as Von Neumann machines is to make more of ourselves. We do this by fucking. We can break the program by will, but will often crumbles in the face of entertainment. So the program turned fucking into our most primal, cheapest, and easiest form of entertainment.

Life sucks, so humans fuck, which makes more humans, causing life to suck more. Rinse, repeat.

How the fuck do we solve this? The obvious solution is to spread knowledge and materials for contraception, but let's back up to the monopoly factor. (It was number 3 in the above list of reasons life sucks, remember?) A few generous souls may try to carry out the obvious solution by grassroots missions, but realistic, large-scale proliferation of birth control, even as simple as condoms, requires the cooperation of the monopoly, and it's not the monopoly's best interests to allow it.

Jonathan Swift had a rather modest proposal for solving this problem, and I think it could work. Just expand it to the global scale, ignore the fact that it's the oldest and greatest dead baby joke in English literature, and Bob's your uncle. There's just one problem. Swift hints at it, but I'll say it straight out.

The rich eating the poor isn't really all that different from what's going on already.

We outnumber them millions to one. We can take their fucking asses. Milk them for every goddamn drop they've got. Beg, sponge, swindle, and steal from those above. Borrow and collect from peers. And when you see someone worse off than you (no matter who you are, you will,) give.

Feed the poor. Eat the rich.

And for fuck's sake, try a little harder to break your fucking programming!

Dirty Hippie Experiment Update

I know what you must be thinking. You must be thinking "Holy hell, he's actually making a post that has actual direct relation to a previous one! Better start checking for other signs of the Apocalypse!" Fucked-uppedness of that aside, though, I promised an update on the Dirty Hippie Experiment, so an update on the Dirty Hippie Experiment you're going to get, even though it's a few weeks late.

A couple days after the previous post, I discontinued use of conditioner. Within seven days of the start of the experiment, my hair had stopped greasing the hell out of itself and looked great. The strands affected by split ends are mostly shed out by now, so I'm going to use that as an excuse to continue my indefinite postponement of a haircut.

Also on the topic of my shaggy mop-top, I'd like to give a shoutout to Frosty, whom I haven't seen since high school. The first to leave a comment on my blag in quite a while, he said:

"I've gone many days at a time without using shampoo or conditioner for my hair and had wonderous results. Also, as unbelievable as it may sound, beer gives hair an amount of body and silk uncomparable to any modern hair cleansing chemical. Hope it goes well."

Well, man, thanks for reading. Good to know somebody does. Also, thanks for the beer tip. Now the world can finally know that there in fact IS a use for American-style light lager other than as theatrical urine.

In other news, I'd like to ask a question of anyone reading this: Do you have stairs in your house? Post your answer as a comment on this post.

Blah blah blah feces blah dead babies blah blah fuckshitpisscuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits blah blah blah.

Whee!!! I'm going out of my fucking mind!!!

Yeah. Twelve hours in a summer semester is certifiably insane, right? So far, I seem to be holding up rather well, but it's still only the third week in. More results will follow as the experiment continues.

As I mentioned two posts ago, I went and saw The Cure two days ago. The Austin Music Hall has a general admission capacity of about 4000. It was a sold-out show. They could have just as easily sold out the Frank Erwin Center, which is, for those of you who don't know much about Austin, much bigger. Anyway, I got to the Music Hall early enough to get a good place to stand. I ended up about five rows of people shorter than me back from the stage and pretty close to the center. Pretty damn good. So was the show. The opening band, 65 Days of Static, was worthy, and as for The Cure themselves, they put on a spectacular show, playing a lot of live rarities and filling both encore sets entirely with oldies. You have to admit that there's something admirable about a band that's been going strong for 30 years and is still willing to end a show with their first single.

I've also started something else to see how it turns out. It's at the recommendation of my mother (did I mention I'm going out of my fucking mind?) and I call it...

The Dirty Hippie Experiment!!!

Anyway, the basic premise is that it will be better for my hair to stop using shampoo. I'm on my second day of just using conditioner. Supposedly it will stop being visibly greasy after a while. On the positive side, I've got less frizz and more body. I'm still going to have to cut it to get rid of the biblical plague of split ends. More results will follow as the experiment continues.

Normally, this would be the part where I end the post with a stupid failure of a joke about shit or dead babies or something equally distasteful, but I have to hit the can and I can't think of anything else.

The Ten Stupidest Songs I've Ever Heard

Before I begin here, I'd just like to point out that being on this list doesn't necessarily make a song bad. Some of the following songs I absolutely love, some I can't fucking stand. So, let's begin!

#10: Type O Negative - Kill All the White People
This song is just bloody hilarious. It's intentionally stupid because of the irony that it's by a bunch of white guys. "Kill all the white people!" we can here Pete Steele shouting, "Then we'll be free!" This, of course, will never work.

#9: Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama
Honestly, I would be perfectly happy if I never had to hear this song again, but it unfortunately resides in the regular playlists of classic rock stations across the country, so it's something I'll just have to tough out. The music is uninteresting at best, and the lyrics are a moronic redneck pride rant based out of a severely misguided rebuttal to Neil Young's "Southern Man." Next, please.

#8: The Searchers - Love Potion Number Nine
What the blue hell is the significance of the cop on 34th and Vine breaking the bottle? And come to think of it, wouldn't "Slut Potion Number Nine" be a more appropriate name for the titular concoction?

#7: DJ Alligator Project - Blow My Whistle (Bitch)
"Blow yo' whistle like a laser-guided missile!" Need I say more?

#6: The Beastie Boys - Time to Get Ill
How could I possibly compile a list of stupid songs without mentioning the Beasties? These guys could very easily be said to have a very stupid repertoire, but I think "Time to Get Ill" really takes the cake as a shining example of Beastie stupidity, not to mention the shamelessness with which they sample. By the way, last time I got ill, it wasn't a very pleasant experience. Quit bastardizing my language, hip-hop. Sick is not a good thing to be.

#5: Mindless Self-Indulgence - Bitches
MSI is another group that just can't escape being on this list. Unlike the Beastie Boys, though, I can't fault MSI for their stupidity. "Bitches" is a brilliant work of dada poetry, designed purely to make you laugh and say "what the fuck?" So, like the song says, "POW!!! Motherfucker."

#4: Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy
Too sexy? I dunno. Definitely too self-absorbed.

#3: Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers - The Monster Mash
Elvis Presley described this song as "the stupidest thing I've ever heard." It is now regarded as a classic of '50s hokeyness, but it's still just as stupid today as it was when the King laughed it off.

#2: Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck
I don't know whether to laugh or puke. This song was meant to be satirical, but the sheer accuracy with which it portrays the stupidity of the '70s disco scene is stupefying. Disco Duck? More like Stupid Fuck! Aww, shit, that's right, I went there. I'm just too edgy for TV. That, and the Donald Duck-esque spoken voiceovers give my inner child nightmares.


#1: King Missile - Detachable Penis
I challenge you to find or write a stupider song than this. Not because I want to be proven right in my assumption that it is the stupidest song ever written, but because I really want to know if it's possible to write a stupider song. Seriously, I want to know how you top something that opens with the lines "I woke up this morning with a bad hangover, and my penis was missing again. This happens all the time. It's detachable." Sure, he goes on to explain the story of his wayward member very logically, but that doesn't change the fact that a detachable penis is the most amazingly stupid premise for a comical song. But hell, it's funny, so I will say that "Detachable Penis" has the honor of being the stupidest song I've ever heard.

This, That, and The Other

In this cruel, cold, fucked-up world of brothers turned against brothers and babies having babies, I find it very comforting to find that people still love the Beatles. On what am I basing this claim? Panic! At the Disco's new single, "Nine in the Afternoon." Click this link to watch the video. Sergeant Pepper would be proud.

In other music-related news, I'm a-gonna see the Cure live at the Austin Music Hall in June. I'm totally stoked, and it's gonna be totally awesome 'cause it's a pretty damn small venue by Cure standards.

More musical stuff... You've gotta check this band out: Cloud Cult. I was in the crew that loaded their gear on and off the stage of the Red Eyed Fly during South by Southwest, they gave me a free CD for this, their live show was awesome (it involved a violin, a cello, a trombone, a trumpet, and paint,) and now I'm plugging them to everybody I know. Check them out at their website or at their myspace.

I've also got my own musical project slowly in the process of coming to life. Not going to rush it though. It'll be ready when it'll be ready. What I really need is a band, but that's another story.

In news not related to music, I've decided just now to post only good things in my life, funny stories, or random impersonal stuff in this blog. My reasoning for leaving out the bad stuff? If you don't know me, you don't care about it, and quite frankly, you don't want to know. If you do know me and you care enough to want to know, I've probably already told you personally or decided that you would be better off if I didn't. Let's face it, the few (if any) people who read this
probably check it less often than I update it. A lot less often.

So, AggieCon's coming up. That's going to be interesting, hanging out again with all those crazy people I haven't seen in months, watching far too much anime, getting far too little sleep, consuming far too much caffeine and perhaps even a bit too much alcohol... Has fun written all over it, as well as the inevitability of another badge on my con penis.

I'm going to have to replace one of my cell phones soon. The bloody thing keeps bitching at me about its battery. Oh well, I've had it for almost four years now. Not a bad run for a cheap little brick from Finland, and besides, it'll give me a good excuse to thin out my contacts on that line.

Well, until later, all none of you, enjoy your Internet responsibly.