Planet Notion - A selection of exceedingly Crap Cover Songs!

28/08/2008

After watching Leona Lewis sing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Planet Notion was inspired to search out crap cover songs. And so that you don’t waste ten minutes of your life reading this when you could be eating a Magnum or watching The Wire or something, we’ve stuck to the old cliché Top 5 format. Except it isn’t really a ‘Top’ 5; it’s just 5 crap cover songs. Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

Gareth Gates – Unchained Melody: G-g-g-g-g-a-a-a-a… Ga-ga-gareth Gates released loads of crap cover songs. In fact, it’s a bit of a tradition for X-Factor contestants when they leave the show. But his cover of ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Righteous Brothers was so cringe-worthingly (sic) low that Planet Notion had to think of the most sordid things, like tapeworms and granny-banging, to cloud our mind of the stuttering little tyke on our radio. Little surprise Planet Notion was unable to embed the video from YouTube. Embedding of this travesty has been disabled to spare us any further misery. Unfortunately they haven’t prevented live performances from being shown, so we managed to find evidence of Gates’ spiel. ‘Unchained Melody’ was also crucified by those two blokes from Soldier Soldier. One of them was Robson Green but we forget the other guys name… pretty sure it was Daniel Craig.

Celine Dion – You Shook Me All Night Long: Celine Dion singing anything by a rock band is a bad idea. Celine Dion singing anything by a popular rock band is a worse idea. Celine Dion singing an AC/DC track is a ‘bang-your-head-against-a-brick-wall-over-and over-and-over-again’ bad idea. And Celine Dion singing it with Anastasia is a ‘jump-out-a-top-floor-window-and-think-about-the-consequences-when-they’re-wiping-your-face-off-some-poor-bastards-ford-cortina’ bad idea. Not content with shredding our ear-drums into oblivion with that song from Titanic that stayed at number one for 40 odd years, the Canadian decided to team-up with Anastasia and sing ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ at a Vegas concert. “She told me to come but I was already there,” is a kind of exciting turn-of-phrase to hear a songstress yelping. Unless the songstress in question is Celine Dion or Anastasia. We found a video of two fat birds miming to it…

Ronan Keating – Fairytale of Newyork: Take the greatest Christmas song by one of the finest Oirish exports of all time: The Pogues. Then add one of the worst Oirish exports of all time: Ronan Keating. Then lock Ronan in the one recording studio that’ll touch the whole blasphemous affair with a bargepole and release it on one of the million Christmas compilations that hit shelves every September. And then watch it fizzle out like a wet fart because (A) its crap and (B) you should never, ever, ever attempt a cover of a Pogues song. Not that The Pogues weren’t good, it’s just that nobody can pull off Shane McGowan’s raspy brogue unless they’ve had four bottles of wine, two bottles of scotch, a can of special brew and fourteen bottles of Frosty Jack. Sorry Ronan, Dandelion and Burdock just doesn’t cut it. We couldn’t find a video of Ronan singing Fairytale of New York, but we did find a really scary video of Ronan Keating getting so close to the camera that you think he actually wants to eat you.

Will Young – Light my Fire: God-damn X-Factor. Again!!! Jim Morrison would be turning in his grave if he heard this. Light my Fire wasn’t the finest Doors song, but it was a darn good one tarnished by this sacrilege bull-dung. It isn’t the fact that Will Young sounds like a small-boy being attached to jump-leads and zapped with 65,000 watts of electricity that gets our goat the most. Nor the fact that he stutters on the word ‘Fire’ like a 90-year-old Army Sergeant suffering from dementia and being force-fed Oxtail soup in a grotty care home. It’s the fact that it’s Will Young! Singing the Doors!! When he should be walking out of one, closing it, and sparing us from further outbursts of frustration in the future. I mean, what if we burst a blood vessel or gassed ourselves or something? Would that be murder by Crap Cover Song? Anyway, here’s a Neighbours montage we found accompanying the song...

Britney Spears – (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction: BLEEEEEARGH! Man, there’s a bit of pepperoni, a bean and several lumps of carrot among the projectile liquid that just spewed-forth from Planet Notion’s mouth and all over our keyboard. This, Britney Spears, is what happens when you take one of the finest songs ever and savagely rape it with beats, scratches, mixing decks and all the other crap that would make Keith Richards pull-out one of his hunting knives and carve some poor fucker up with it. I don’t think anyone should attempt to sing a Stones song; especially if they’re Britney Spears. To highlight just how terrible this version of '(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction' is, Planet Notion has located a video that merges snippets of Michael Jackson with Britney’s singing. Seriously, these are the things nightmares are made of… Words: Dangerous Dave