This wonderful cover by Alanis Morrisette is a send up of The Black Eyed Peas ‘My Humps’ and it is outstanding! If you have seen the original video then you should recognize that Alanis is mocking Fergy all through the video. Her cracking up at the end is worth the watch as well.
Wikipedia defines a cover or cover version as
In popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition (performance or recording) of a previously recorded song.
The term “cover version” originally implied a rival version of a tune recorded by an artist subsequent to an “original version.” Popular musicians (and especially modern listeners) have now begun to use the word “cover” to refer to any remake of a song.
Musicians now play what they call “cover versions” of songs as a tribute to the original performer or group. Using familiar material is an important method in learning various styles of music. Artists may also perform “covers” of a favorite artist’s hit tunes for the simple pleasure of playing a familiar song. A cover band plays such “cover versions” exclusively.
Now, me, I like a cover version where the artist adds something unique or interesting to the song. Jonathan Coulton’s cover of Baby Got Back was so sublime and wonderful that listening to the original lost its appeal. Then, when someone set it to the original music video it was like turning the knob to 11.
Contrast that with some no name band that covered “I Fought The Law And The Law Won” which I was unfortunate enough to hear yesterday. Nothing new to the song; with the exception of a little bit of instrumentation change. Not a new angle, different key, time signature, nothing. I’m sure it is a current group that thinks they are being edgy but it isn’t working. Perhaps they should brush up on their french fry making skills.
Lots of artists that I love have covered songs that they love but they bring something new to the song - listen to Sarah McLachlan’s cover of “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” or Kate Bush’s cover of “Lord of the Reedy River” (both originally by Donovan). They are both so very different that when I went back and listened to the originals they didn’t ring as the same songs until I had listened closely. One of my favorite bands to listen to is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, which do punk covers of old radio favorites. That is good music! Definitely bringing something new to the table.
Don’t get me wrong; I love listening to people that take other stuff and make it their own. I like playing music myself and it is a blast to sit and listen to my friend Doug play something in any environment.
Just don’t release a cover song that sounds like every other cover of that song including the original and expect me to think you are edgy and different, ’cause it ain’t gonna work.
(I still haven’t made up my mind about the new Shaw Blades “Influence” album, which is Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades covering the influential songs from their youth, I guess. They do it well, but it still feels like a couple of guys jamming in their living room; not much changing in the songs or style on the bits I’ve heard. I like it though, so I guess I’m more of a hypocrite than I thought.)
Browsing the Dish Network this evening, I stumbled upon Moulin Rouge!, starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.
How simply wonderful!
I saw a previous version starring José Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor several years ago and quite enjoyed it. I was somewhat reluctant to see the 2001 version and had only caught snippets here and there. My mum had gushed over it and that is usually a good sign but somehow a musical made up of popular songs sung by dramatic actors just didn’t seem right.
The part I came in on tonight was where Satine (Kidman) and Christian (McGregor) meet on top of a ginormous elephant (I think) and Christian professes his love to Satine and wins her over to his affections. Portions of a couple of dozen love songs from the last forty or so years are woven about into an amazing tapestry of adoration and longing that could have been so awful but was simply magical. I think that the performance of Kidman and McGregor was what did it though; I don’t think I have ever been more impressed with the range and versatility of an actor than at that moment. I’ve been a big fan of McGregor since Trainspotting and Velvet Goldmine and this was quite a shock, but very pleasant one.
All through the rest of the movie so far I have been similarly surprised and wowed. The ‘Roxanne’ scene was fantastic as well. Even if the rest of the show tanks, it will have been worth it for all that I’ve enjoyed so far. Bravisimo!
A year or so ago I stumbled across this video, then promptly lost the URL. Now, here it is in its glory:
“Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me”, a song by TISM (This Is Serious Mum) animated by Bernard Derriman.
Please note that the song is rather catchy and might not be safe for where you work. Makes me laugh though; I feel for the rabbit.
Yes, you read it right - the bunnies are BACK!
I love the 30 second Bunny Theater. With that in mind, you can catch up on the rest of the parodies at
C’mon, what are you waiting for? They’re only 30 seconds long!
For those of you playing along at home, I have updated several recent articles with the correct categories. They may show up as new again for you. My apologies.
Reading today at ha.ckers.org web application security lab, I was intrigued by RSnake’s comments about internet security:
I’ve never been a fearmonger, but for the first time in my life I’ve found myself telling people, “I don’t know a company I couldn’t break into.†Every system I’ve found has vulnerabilities. There was something Bruce Schneier wrote a number of years back (and I’m paraphrasing here) that said that for every man hour it takes to build security it takes n+1 to break it. That is, if there are vibration mics in the ground it will take exactly n+1 the time it took to place them and test them and get them working properly as it would to break in.
On Mythbusters episode 59 the other night the crew cracked into several physical devices like fingerprint scanners, and walked past various versions of motion detection devices (with something as simple as a pane of glass). The point being here are always way around security, physical or otherwise. In the case of JavaScript port scanning it is similar to a Trojan horse. The idea is to sneak something otherwise normall and innocuous into an internal interface.
JavaScript seemed the most likely candidate, so we tackled that first. Yes, that means nearly every company on earth is vulnerable to that. Is that the only weapon in the arsenal? No way. Are there ways to fix it? We’re already working on them. Will that solve things? No way. It will just shift the problem elsewhere at best, and at worst, it will continue to be an esoteric attack vector that is only used by the few people who really get it’s consequences.
What really struck me is the concept that every system has vulnerabilities. William Gibson wrote about computers, networks and cracking those networks in Neuromancer,Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive, a wonderful trilogy that started me out with a healthy skepticism and love of networks and computers. I love what you can do with a computer and linking them together but I have no illusions that anything created with and/or stored on a computer is anything more than 1s and 0s and can be altered or deleted with a moment’s notice. I’ve got a rather decent network set up at my home and neighborhood, wired and wireless, that neighbors are free to use (hopefully with permission) and a beefy firewall between me and that semi-public network and another one between the semi-public network and the internet at large. I know that all of these can be cracked; my only hope is in making it difficult enough that someone else is a more attractive target than I am.
If you haven’t read the above trilogy then hop, skip and jump down to your local library and get them, all three, at once. Trust me; they are quite entertaining. You might even learn something.
As a postscript, I still find it amazing that William Gibson published those stories between 1984 and 1988, long before the World Wide Web came into existence and the internet as we now perceive it was conceived of, let alone implemented. Even more amazing is that at the time, the world was experiencing the beginning of the personal computer with the IBM PC beginning its invasion and the Apple Macintosh nipping at its heels. I started college at Utah State University in 1984 and as a student had access to a rather advanced VAX/VMS mainframe computer. We did our homework on it, chatted with students at other universities in real time, sent email, even played text games that stretched the limits of that system (ASCII version of Star Trek rocked! Still one of the most fun games I’ve ever played). Twenty years has me typing this on a laptop that would dwarf that VAX System with a PocketPC sitting in its cradle, ready to go where I want to and still connect to any local network.
I can’t imagine what computers and networks will be like in the next twenty years - but I’ll bet William Gibson has.
The Summer 2006 issue of Shimmer: Available August 1.
Heat makes the air shimmer. It’s too damn hot to write marketing text. Buy a copy of the Summer 2006 Shimmer. Read it.
Why? 8 new stories, art, and an interview with writing team Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta.
Angela Slatter, Tom Pendergrass, Paul Abbamondi, and Marina T. Stern return with stories of books, bureaucracy, blood, and heartbreak. Amal El-Mohtar and Stephen Moss make their fiction debuts. Beverly Jackson tells a fish tale, and Michael Livingston talks about gnomes. (Check out our Featured Author page to hear Michael read the story.)
Bonus: after reading, the print version works as a fan! Our pdf readers are on their own.
Thanks to a nod from a friend of mine, I’m lined up to see Serenity next Tuesday, September 27th. In case you have been under a rock for the last couple of years, here is the summary:
Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m getting in free for agreeing to write a review of the movie. I’m expecting to like it (okay, I’m expecting to love it) but if I don’t, I’ll tell you about it. If I do, expect fan-boy gushing. Lots of it.
Yes, books. I love books; paperbacks, oversized comics, all of them.
However, I love hardbacks the best.
Partly because they hold up better over multiple readings, partly because the first editions are printed on archival paper so they last longer.
I think I’m a bit of a twit about it though. I’ve been collecting First Edition Science Fiction and Fantasy hardbacks for, well, a long time. I read them, some of them multiple times, and I love to collect them.
Unfortunately, it is a bit of an expensive hobby; a hardback can run between 25 and 35 dollars. Ouch.
Now, I love the dust jackets and all, but I don’t sell them. If I buy it, I’m keeping it. With that in mind, I don’t mind buying the discounted books at Barnes and Noble or Borders. Sure, there is a little black mark on the pages but it doesn’t affect the dust jacket or the way it reads, so I don’t care.
A couple of years ago I discovered bookcloseouts.com and I find I don’t buy much anywhere else now. For a little more than a hardback, I just received four beautiful hardbacks in the mail:
Hmmmm, I think I like books in series… (this is no revelation; I have at least six series that I’m waiting for the author to finish up before I read them. I’m strange that way. I may give up on Robert Jordan though). I did notice that Amazon has these discounted at around 16-18 each, but since I got all four delivered to my door for 33$US, I think I still got the better deal at bookcloseouts.com.