The Unheard Music (Volume XVI)

I hate upgrading.  When I was a kid, you bought albums, actual LPs, on vinyl and that was pretty much it.  Then CDs came along and most people at least bought their favorites on CD and most subsequent purchases were also CDs, vinyl kind of died for mass consumers in the late 80's.  Then artists, realizing the substandard quality of their original CDs re-released those recordings on an enhanced CD with remastered audio, improved liner notes and sometimes, bonus tracks.  Some artists (David Bowie, Elvis Costello and Led Zeppelin to name a few) are now on their second round of reissues. Where does it stop??!

It doesn't stop. As long as people keep purchasing these reissues, labels will keep issuing them.  At least the second time around, Foo Fighters are doing the reissue thing right.  (I'll admit, I didn't have to pay for The Color And The Shape first time around and recently got a promo copy of the reissue, so I'm out exactly $0.00 for both versions.)  This is the first in what I presume will be a total catalog reissue for Foo Fighters and is actually their second record. In addition to the usual bells and whistles of expanded liner notes and deluxe packaging, they also include six bonus tracks, four of which are covers that were fairly rare prior to this reissue.  How you define 'rare' in the age of file sharing is a relative term.

Since I consider myself a moderate Foo Fighters fan (I'm a drummer and I respect Dave Grohl's chops) I already had this cover but wanted to share it with you. 

When Gary Numan's "Cars" came out, a kid in my neighborhood went apeshit and bought all his albums and played them for anyone who'd listen.  (He also was way into Queen, The J. Geils Band and Electric Light Orchestra.) He was the first person to play me Gary Numan's "Down in the Park".

When I learned that the Foos covered  "Down in the Park" on the X Files movie soundtrack, I was floored.  I hadn't heard the Gary Numan song in a decade and Grohl's fingerprints are all over the drum part on this track. They also cover Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street' which is also part of this reissue but I had trouble loading it, so one song will have to do.

Have a great weekend, enjoy the music. 

Comments

[Scotty]

This is a good version of this song. My wife is big fan of the original version. I'll make sure hears this.

[Jeff]

Interesting choice. Sometimes unusual covers like Lemonheads 'Mrs Robinson' or Dinosaur Jr. 'Just Like Heaven' are cool at first, but in the end leave me feeling that they miss that jenesaisquoi that gives a tune its staying power.

Of course, others give a great boost to the original (Happy Mondays 'Step On') or add a new dimension (Alison Krauss 'Now that I've Found You').

I'm afraid I find the Foo's falls into the first category for me tho.

[Andy]

Hey Ken. This post reminded me of this show I saw recently about converting data into new formats every 10 years. I think you can watch the episode here:
http://dsc.discovery.com/video/player.html?playerId=203711706&bclid=992358259