Cover Me.

According to Wiki-pedia Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" is the most covered song of all time. Why bring this up you ask? Well because I really like cover songs. Not the kind of karaoke that’s done on American Idol, but professionals who cover great songs and in some cases take mediocre songs and make them great. I recently stumbled across an album while searching for songs for my Zune (a great device btw). It was called “This Is Metal's Most Covered Moments Of The '80s” Perfect! I thought. Here’s and album that combines two types of music I really enjoy. I was only partially right.

The album was released in the fall of last year, but I wonder when it was actually made. Seems like quite a bit of effort to get these artists together to make an album, and then do zero marketing to let folks know it’s out there. Nonetheless, I was pretty stoked about checking it out. The album (double album really) features 30 different songs that most everyone would recognize, from “Crazy Train” to “Back in Black”. Now, I should start off by saying that if you think the only person who’s allowed to sing “Misty Mountain Hop” is Robert Plant and anyone else who does has committed musical sacrilege, then this isn’t the album for you. If your like me though and are curious to see what a Vince Neil and George Lynch can do with a song like “Paranoid” then it’s worth reading on (I hope). I’m not going to take the time to individually review every song on the disk. I don’t have that good a memory nor that kind of time however, I will try to hit some of the highlights, and low lights.

First off I was a bit disappointed with the liberty taken by many of the artists. By that I mean there was virtually none taken for the most part. I would have liked to see a bit more interpretation done on the artist’s part. Most of the songs are performed pretty straight up, the way we’d recognize them from their original recordings. I’m not sure if that was the directive or not but I would have liked to see a fresh approach taken in a lot of cases.

The Highs – Quiet Riot do a pretty good job with AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. Paul Di’Anno’s vocals on “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” are excellent. I know most wouldn’t agree with me on this but Faster Pussycat’s version of “Misty Mountain Hop” was actually pretty good. It surprised me since I don’t really care for either Zeppelin or Faster Pussycat. Dee Snider nails “Crazy Train” to the wall! It’s probably the best track on the whole album. Phil Collen and Joe Lynn Turner do a pretty impressive job on “Back in Black” as well. I mean really who would’ve thought that Phil could recreate one of the most shredded vocal cords in rock history? Interestingly Poison is represented on the album as well, twice. “Fallen Angel” and “Nothin’ but a Good Time” both make appearances on the disk and are done by none other then…Brett Michaels. Apparently he didn’t trust anyone else to cover his music so he found the best person he could to do the job…himself. He mixes up the melody and the songs don’t come out half bad. In retrospect maybe that’s what more of the artists should have done.

The Lows – First and foremost, Lemmy absolutely destroyed “Tie Your Mother Down” and not in a good way. I really dig that song and as soon as his voice hit my ears I puked a little in my mouth. “Livin on a Prayer” was covered by the Bulletboys. I don’t know who their guitarist is but he won’t make you forget Richie Sambora’s name anytime soon. Neither will the lead singer Marq Torien. People tend to either really like or really hate John Bon Jovi, but there should be a consensus on our hatred for Marq Torien of the Bulletboys. Also, I like Jani Lane and Warrant well enough, but there’s something that just didn’t quite work when they attempted “Panama”.

The rest of the songs for the most part are just forgettable for lack of a better word. Not particularly compelling but not entirely make your ears bleed from pain either. I was hoping to find a few more gems in this album but was a little disappointed. If you have a “to go” service from Zune Marketplace, Napster or Yahoo Music then it’s worth downloading and checking out. If you’re locked into an Ipod however I’m not sure I could recommend spending the money to download this disk.