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Or, perhaps, Paul ❗ Anka Sings.
Like the best of blues intros, I woke up this morning… Well, I sortof rolled over a bit, but I distinctly heard an ad on TV for a new Paul Anka album, “Rock Swings”. Bad dream… Paul Anka… crooning… “With the lights out, we’re less dangerous.. here we are now…”
THEN I WOKE UP AND REALIZED I WASN’T DREAMING 😯 There’s worse. I gather Mudhoney’s “Black Hole Sun” and (this bit must be really funny) EVH’s “Jump” get the swing treatment. For me, it’s late – I’ve eaten cheese – I’m going to have nightmares anyway but, for the other timezones, this link’s a start:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4755657Now, I’ve got a deal. Pop/rock singers should not do big band/swing. Brits are the worst culprits, so Lee and I shall get out cricket bats and dissuade Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams etc from even thinking “Girls watch the boys, watch the girls watch the boys who watch the…” WHACK -we’ll hit them.
In return, if our chums across the pond could get the baseball bats out… Locate Mr Anka and ‘dissuade’ him from any further atrocities, OK?
Just so they don’t feel left out, Aussie chums Mike and Jason can grab a cricket bat (try holding the black, cylindrical bit wrapped in tape and use the wooden, wedgy shaped bit for hitting things) and move in on INXS with their new singer 😛
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A duet with Peggy Lee is in the pipeline:
Anka: “When I was a child, I had a fever”
Lee: “fever, when you kiss me
Fever when you hold me tight
Fever in the morning
Fever all through the night”Anka: “My hands felt just like two balloons”
😯 Incidentally, I’ve just checked out who has covered “Fever”: Beyonce, Kylie, Madonna… 😕
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I saw him today being interveiwed on BBC television, and you 2 do have a very good point, he is kind of up himself, and i see why you dont like him on a personal level, but still, ‘Teen spirit’ does swing… a little.
The 2 interviewers said they loved it, so im not too hot on it anymore, i dont like to be associated with middle class England.
Anarchy in the UK, it’s coming sometime a may beeee.. -
Even when Anka carks it, no ones going to remember him for Rock Swings. Even his die hard will only remember how his massive head of hair dwindled away to a patch of baldness, just as his singing career dwindled away to performing covers of the Alf and Bewitched themes.
With respect to Anka but, according to reviews on Amazon etc, people do enjoy the new album, and I guess that’s all that matters.
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Funnelly nuff, one of the things I dislike about Anka is that he peddles this myth. Lounge-lizard-like ( 😯 alliteration), he’d appear on 70s chat shows, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’d like to perform a song that, when Mr Frank Sinatra heard it, he approached me personally and asked if he could use the song and I said…”
A combination of name-dropping, forelock-tugging and fact-omission that kindof sums him up. He didn’t write “My Way”. He did an anglo-lyric version of Claude Francoise’s song. It even sounds French, if you think about it (I can easily imagine Edith Piaf singing it). To give him credit, he wrote lyrics at a time when many singers just put out what was handed to them.
OK, so Anka wrote songs. Frank may not have been a writer but he’s a collosus by comparison as a performer. “Songs for Swinging Lovers” sounds like the title of an album for dubious couples advertizing in the classifieds with box numbers, but it is one of the great albums of the genre. It also contains a fair proportion of cheesy old numbers that were suddenly brought to life again (due credit to Nelson Riddle) by excellent arrangement.
“Rock Swings” (or is it “Swing Rocks” or “Wring Socks”?) just isn’t in the same league and won’t be quoted in five years’ time, never mind fifty.
ps, I loved Sid’s “My Way”. Useless bass player, useless in every department, I did like My Way. I remember my parent’s open-mouthed faces when they saw it. All that “Call this music? It’s … it’s… You kids today…” stuff. Decided it had to have some merit for that reason alone. I wish my sprog would dislike my taste in music, seems only natural.
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We could get into a debate over plenty of covers, or even collaberations, but we would be here for ever (because I still think the Rosanne (from TV show fame) version of Robert Palmer’s Simply Irresistable is the better one)
Frank had certain leeway, and even if he wanted to sing the Macarina, well good on him. Anka on the other hand – well!
Maybe it’s not a problem with Anka himself, but the massive change in genres in which he’s ported the songs to. I can’t help but see something obnoxious about it.
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The only thing i knew about Anka before 3 weeks ago was he wrote ‘My Way’, and thats it, never heard him sing before, probably seen pictures of him but cant recall, dont know anyone that owns up to owning one of his records, Dont like Sinatra, never have, Tony Bennet i can listen to all night, Anka just seems ok.
Out of curiosity, what did you 2 think of the Sinatra colaboration with Bono etc before his death, any good? and also turning the tables, what did you both feel about Sids version of ‘My Way’ ? -
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I don’t have a problem with Dread Zeppelin, I loved Mike Flowers “Wonderwall” and the Rolf Harris “Stairway to Heaven”.
I don’t have a problem with swing/big band/be-bop, either – I’m quite partial to it.
Maybe I do have a problem with Paul Anka, but it’s a pretty understandable one; he’s a middle-rank nondescript whose prominence (like a sub-sub Tony Bennett) is based on the fact that the rest of them are dead. This week, the comedian Rory Bremner joked that “The Beatles are dying in the wrong order!” Bit harsh on Macca, but funny. All the more true of big band singers, though.
Seeing as we’re hitting nails into each other’s heads, I thought Mike hit the nail in the head. You know those graphics-morphing programs? Start with a jpeg of Camilla Parker-Bowles and a jpeg of a horse’s face, then click “go”. The software effortlessly (as you’d expect) morphs Camilla’s face into the horse’s face. No creativity required, just crunching the vectors.
Well, that’s what this “rock swings” album is like. Take “Jump”, take “Pennsylvania 65000” and just click on “go morph”. No next-generation stuff; quite the opposite. Take an 80s song and drag it back into the 40s. All those involved in the album think that clicking fingers and “bap-baah!” noises guarantee success. It doesn’t. It cheeses mightily.
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I do have a problem with Anka to an extent, but there was no prior grudge before this incident. When a song is covered, and a weak job is done for the sake of the granny folk enjoying it, ala Eye of the Tiger, it cheapens the original work.
Clapton and Guns n Roses enriched Knocking On Heavens Door (thankfully the Avril Lasagne version is not popular). On the other hand, Anka just makes a complete joke of his covers. I’d have no problem if he was just having a good old laugh, but it looks to me that he’s taking it very seriously.
You could you say, but hey!, it all comes down to personal opinion, and it does. But Anka cheapens the originals I rekon. Put out a fresh album with origianl work and I won’t give a toss what he does.
All in all but… I still find Paul Anka Swings, in the words of Patrick Bateman, “a laugh riot.”
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OK, so does that go for lovers rock too? During the 80’s a lot of Reggae artists took old classics and transformed them in to brilliant lovers rock style reggae, what about John Holt (Holt not Holmes) and all his great covers? should they be thrown in to the bin marked ‘Dares to cover a classic’, reaggae , swing, classical, pop, rap, R&B have all produced great reworked covers, i think you 2 should just come out and say you have a big problem with Anka as a person, all music is valid (except madonna).
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i think 1b hit on the head with the transposing for another genre. However I can’t help but get the image of a Paul Anka Transport Machine for 3 easy payments of $29.95 where you pop in a song, and it will churn out a watered down swing version in under 3 mins flat. How long before every song ever made has a Anka version. Professional artists like him need some constraints otherwise they go overboard – he’s living proof.
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Blimey, Lee. I didn’t know you could be e-kicked; certainly not my intention, chum. Anyhoo, I’ve spent a fair bit of the last day unbuttoning my shirt, clicking fingers and singing “Might as well jump” so don’t feel alone.
Of course, it’s catchy – swing should be. But it’s damn blimmin’ funny. I can smell the seriousness Paul + Co are attaching to this project; they’re well off base. It reminds me of that BBC “Perfect Day” compilation. Emmylou Harris (C+W) put in a gorgeous line, despite the genre-change. Others, ranging from operatic types to Heather Small of M-People, gargled some inappropriate nonsense because they just didn’t get it.
Anka’s album reeks of someone just taking hits and transposing them to fit another genre. I find it funny because he doesn’t get his own joke.
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Hold on guys i only said i’d heard 2 of the tracks! and next thing i know ive been jumped on and getting a right good kicking!!, Barclays Banker is cockney slang, and i should know i was born in Bow hospital (now called St. Andrews), and i lived in London E14 for 18 years, more Cockney slang, Berk ?? short for Berkshire Hunt short for C*** ! so next time someone calls you a berk you know what they really mean.. so if i may drag myself up from the floor, dust myself down, and call the ambulance for a much needed hospital visit can i explain what i like about the new workings of ‘Teen spirit’ and ‘Jump’ ?? to my ear they sound good, i dont care about what Anka has done in the past, what he looks like, what he presents himself as, the simple fact is, to my ears, those 2 tracks sound good, not brilliant, not ground breaking, and certainly not comical or farcical, just good. Now can somebody call an ambulance?? 😥
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In any case, the original “Survivor” track is possibly the worst soft-rawk song ever slapped onto cold vinyl. Nose-picking bassline, bad choice of bomber jackets and berets and the keyboard player? As the British advert says, “Should’ve gone to SpecSavers”. I do love that old video for “Eye of the Tiger”. I think they meant to look like a ‘street’ gang of toughies. Bags I fight the k/b player…
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The key phrase is “when it works”. I agree, I like a new take on a cover. An example (a bit obscure, maybe) is The Chimes version of “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” – even suppository-head Bono liked that one. Mr Anka’s take, though, is 😯
Lee, do you remember Mike Flower’s Pops version of “Wonderwall”? Now, that was an intentional laugh and beautifully done. Paul Anka (cockney rhyming slang?) is a middle-ability crooner and I have the uncomfortable feeling that he takes this ‘project’ seriously. Likey Mikey, I just find it hilarious. Kurt Cobain was last measured at 6,000rpm in his grave, shortly after “Rock Swings” was released.
I still like “Jump” best. Pure comedy.
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Ive been listening to tracks off of this album over the past month on our local radio, and for me the judges are still out, im not into swing, dont own a single swing record but ive heard ‘teen spirit’ and ‘Jump’ and they make a good transition into swing, i think if you are going to cover a song then you need to total rearrange it, which is what he did, and im still umming and arring about it. What exactly is the problem with it? is it the concept? or Anka that you dont like? on the other hand what about Johnny Cash and his last CD American IV the man comes around, there were plenty of covers on that record, (U2’s ‘One’ was better than the original) but done in his country style and i really worked.
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This summer, drop anchor and sit back and relax with the Very Best of Paul Anka Swings.
Featuring classic songs such as Paul doing a crooner car alarm, the ever popular swing sandpaper on wood, and who could forget the number #12 smash hit, Paul’s delightful rendition of a food blender.
Buy it for Christmas, buy it for friends, what ever you do, just make sure you buy, the Very Best of Paul Anka Swings. In stores now!
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Please, I implore all regs to check that link. Wear incontinence pads. I must buy this album, for sure. The “True” cover works, because Spandau Ballet were a bunch of fake, medallion wearers in any case. “Teen Spirit” is ultra-weird, sure, but… the outandout winner is “Jump”.
For anyone who knows Glenn Miller, this is like “Pennysylvania 65-JUMP”. Serves Dave Lee Roth right, of course. I love it – serious or not, I’m going back for another listen. Hysterical.
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From Ankas website:
Rock Swings” music ringtones are now available for sale!
-Eye of the tiger
-Hello
-It’s a sin
-Love cat
-Smells like teen spirit
-Tears in Heaven
-WonderwallEYE OF THE TIGER??????!!?!
RINTONES??!!?!?!?!
Old coot probably has done a swing cover of Crazyfrog.
“Ding ding OooooHHHHH
Lets do the crazy froogg OHhhHHHHH
Ding ding OHHHHHhhhhHH
A Brem Brem OHHHHH
A ram da am da am da am da weeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa”
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