I spent quite a bit of time recently putting together a Warren Zevon ICA which will run over at The Vinyl Villain sometime soon. I explained why I felt the need to do this in the intro to that post, so I won't say anymore for the time being, although one song I mention but don't include is this, the best cover of a Prince single ever recorded. Notice how carefully chosen those words are. I didn't say "best cover of a Prince song" since I'm sure we can all name a song or two that Prince handed over to someone else to do a better job of... but covers of his hits are harder to love, mainly because tracks like Little Red Corvette, U Got The Look and Gett Off are so uniquely Prince, nobody else can touch them.
Here's the original of what is arguably his greatest pure pop song. (There's an extended intro on the video which doesn't add much, to be honest.)
Prince - Raspberry Beret
It's a brave band that tries to cover that, so points for bravery must go to R.E.M.'s Mike Mills, Bill Berry and Peter Buck, leaving their usual frontman by the pool and roping in Warren Zevon to deliver a unique interpretation.
"You can't improve on perfection", as Charity Chic remarked, showing his admiration for the movie Chicken Run last week. True enough. But you can have a damn fine stab at it...
Big fan of Warren over here. Looking forward to the ICA Rol.
ReplyDeleteNot as good as Age Of Chance version of "Kiss".
ReplyDeleteDespite being certain I would always prefer the Art of Noise / Tom Jones version, that was surprisingly good.
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