Battle of the Covers: Come Undone (request)

"Dusty Ventures" (dustyventures)
08/27/2014 at 12:30 • Filed to: Battle of the Covers, BOTC, Musiclopnik, Drunk Uncle Gamecat

Heads up, folks! We're going after the music of Gamecat's youth again and it might just make him Come Undone. It's time for another request round of Battle of the Covers, and this time we're unraveling Jcarr's suggestion of this 1993 Duran Duran hit.

In !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! we had eight artists stack up against eachother in the battle for the best performance of the Aretha Franklin hit "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman)." This eight-way duel included three male artists who rewrote it to be "Natural Man," so they could feel more comfortable about singing it, and Carole King who co-wrote the song for Aretha in the first place. At the start of the voting Carole jumped out to an early lead (as vorspringing put it, "it's her song"). But as the votes came in the one male group willing to cover the song without changing "woman" to "man" took control of the polls. In the end Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies beat out Carole by three votes.

The battle for worst initially belonged to Mary J Blige, who somehow managed to accidentally change the word "uninspired" in the first verse to "inspired" when she recorded the song, which causes the line to make no sense whatsoever. I'm not sure why no one in the studio corrected her. But ultimately it was Rod Stewart who drew the most ire of the voters, ultimately beating Celine Dion by five votes, much to the disappointment of 505Turbeaux.

"Come Undone" is another one of those "almost didn't happen" songs. At the start of the 90's Duran Duran was struggling trying to fit into the post-synth-pop musical landscape. Their previous album, Liberty , had fallen flat and they had one last chance to prove they were still relevant, or simply allow the tide to take them out to the sea of has-been obscurity. While working on new sounds band guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and keyboardist Nick Rhodes developed the instrumentation for a new song they intended to use in a side project with some upstart singer named Gavin Rossdale. Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon happened into the studio one day while the duo were practicing the song and fell in love with the track immediately, writing lyrics on the spot. The song was added last second to Duran Duran's self-titled album (also known as "The Wedding Album"), and thanks in large part to the album's hit singles "Come Undone" and "Ordinary World" the album went multi-platinum and led to the largest tour of the band's existence. As for Gavin Rossdale, the original intended recipient of the song, things worked out okay for him as well as he found moderate success with a little band called Bush.

This was the perfect song selection in terms of number of covers. Nine popped up in my searches, one was terrible and belonged to a band that broke up four years after being formed, so it got cut. Boom: eight tracks. Let's do this.

Bachelor Girls - (1999)

Homegrown - (2008?)

Cavo - (2008)

It Dies Today - (2009)

Sonnet to Sleep - (2010)

My Darkest Day - (2010)

Adrenaline Mob - (2012)

Carina Round - (2014)

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AND DON'T FORGET! If you want to check back on the results of previous rounds, or see what covers are coming in future rounds, there is now a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with past rounds and the upcoming battle schedule.

DISCUSSION (38)

Dusty Ventures > Dusty Ventures
08/26/2014 at 21:56

This should be another good one. There's some strong contenders in this bunch. I definitely have a favorite here (admittedly influenced somewhat by my fondness of Maynard James Keenan, bonus points to anyone who can figure out where this means my bias lies and why), but there are multiple here I think are worthy of the "best" title.

Dusty Ventures > Dusty Ventures
08/26/2014 at 22:23

Too late to edit: Those bonus points are only applicable if you can do so without resorting to Google/Wikipedia

Mattbob > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 12:57

I know who he is, I just don't know of his connection to any of these bands.

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 13:03

As someone who actually owns more Duran Duran CDs than any rational male adult should (or that I should admit to). I say that none of these are even close to touching on DDs. Also, Liberty was an amazing album which just failed to connect with the audience (kind of like Big Thing , and similar to Medazzaland in that respect. See also Thompson Twins Queer , Information Society's Peace and Love Inc , INXS' Full Moon, Dirty Hearts and others).

I am abstaining from voting. But I applaud the efforts. PS. For the best recent DD cover out there, Warpaint recently covered The Chauffeur and did so very well.

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ETA, can you say music geek?

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 13:06

I actually know the answer to this, but this is due to my obsessively reading liner notes. Thank you Puscifer!

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/27/2014 at 13:13

Ah, Mr Gamecat. I'd been expecting you

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 13:18

Curses! I have fallen prey to your trap. (Again!)

Sir_Stig: and toxic masculinity ruins the party again. > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 14:27

Caco and My Darkest Day sound crazy similar, Cavo gets my vote for being first. It dies today would have sounded okay if the screaming parts either followed the melody, or were just scrapped.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/27/2014 at 17:46

I knew she did guitar and backing vocals for Puscifer but hadn't listened to any of her solo stuff until I found her cover of Undone. I added her station to my Pandora and I've been listening to it all day. Girl's got pipes.

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 18:01

I was unaware that she had a solo career. I will be checking this out. Thanks for the awareness!

Jcarr > Gamecat235
08/27/2014 at 18:03

I agree, nothing can quite make my spine tingle with early 90s nostalgia like the original. Some of these covers are very interesting interpretations, though.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 21:32

I like this version the best:

Goggles Pizzano > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 21:48

Love the original enough that any cover is going to be hard to swallow.

What I like of the original (to my ears anyway), is it doesn't really fall into a distinct genre. I don't want to imply it created something new though. It's just straight forward beautiful music.

Carina Round hands down. All the others just seem to want to twist it into something it's not.

The song is not a joke, people! :-)x

Dusty Ventures > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
08/27/2014 at 21:52

It was hilarious how many times in my searches I encountered songs titled as Come Undone covers when they were really Coming Undone covers.

Also, this nonsense:

Dusty Ventures > Goggles Pizzano
08/27/2014 at 21:53

You are a good man.

Dusty Ventures > Mattbob
08/27/2014 at 21:55

Gamecat made the connection (because of course he did). Carina Round plays guitar and sings the female vocals for Puscifer.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Dusty Ventures
08/27/2014 at 21:56

505Turbeaux > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 15:22

I love these posts.

Anyhow we need to get in touch re:torchbug (sorry to postjack!)

facebook ? or I can shoot you email address as long as it doesnt hide out on here too long

Dusty Ventures > 505Turbeaux
08/28/2014 at 15:32

Facebook's fine. I'm avoiding Facebook (partially on principle, partially because my feed was getting filled with garbage and idiotic rants, and now partially because the emails Facebook sends me trying to coax me back are hilarious), but messenger is active on my phone, so if you send me a message I will be able to receive and reply. And if you send a friend request I'll be sure to accept it when I finally return.

Jcarr > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 15:34

Thanks for taking my request, this has been a lot of fun! If I may make another suggestion for sometime down the road it would be Feeling Good by Newley and Bricusse and made famous by Nina Simone.

Thanks again!

Dusty Ventures > Jcarr
08/28/2014 at 15:36

No problem, you made a great pick!

505Turbeaux > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 15:37

gotcha. Ill get after you when the time is here to hand off. What is your rally date?

Dusty Ventures > 505Turbeaux
08/28/2014 at 18:27

I've got a "maybe" on September 20 and an "almost certainly" on October 15

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 19:05

So I've listened to all these covers repeatedly since I wrote the post, and while I originally supported Carina because Puscifer her version has really grown on me, to the point that I went and bought it on iTunes. I do genuinely at this point think her cover is the best. The others took the song and tweaked it to fit their native musical genres, but with Carina's cover it feels like her song. I also love the light, soft vocals at the start (again, fantastic voice), and the shift to the darker, grittier sound in the second half, a sound that almost has a vague Trent Reznor/Maynard feel to it.

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 19:26

I broke down and voted... and voted with that for the same reason.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 19:35

Yes! The agreement of the Gamecat! The ultimate form of musical vindication.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 23:12

I'm working on the post for the next round, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I've found FIFTY covers, which I now need to somehow try to narrow down to eight. Do you have any cover versions of the song that you'd want me to include?

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 23:19

if you want a probable loser, there is always Tori. I actually don't know many others. Which is odd.

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/28/2014 at 23:29

oh... I guess there is the Moog Cookbook one. But my mind keeps going back to Weird Al so I'm distracted. =)

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 23:30

I wish I could include Weird Al as a cover

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 23:35

I'm uncovering some serious strange, Tori's gonna have a fight on her hands if she wants to be worst again.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/28/2014 at 23:50

Good lord, they're all terrible

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/29/2014 at 00:23

It's a race to the bottom. Maybe include the Scala and Kolacny Brothers (sp?) version as well.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/29/2014 at 00:35

I have found "so terrible I won't let it taint the competition"

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/29/2014 at 00:47

I was intrigued. I regret clicking. Damn you.

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/29/2014 at 00:48

I refuse to suffer alone

Gamecat235 > Dusty Ventures
08/29/2014 at 01:52

Now... I'm not saying that I snuck a peek at the next post, but you may have won the internet with your use of tags.

Or rather, uh, you will have won the internet? Hypothetically speaking of course. In the future. When it happens. If it happens...

Dusty Ventures > Gamecat235
08/29/2014 at 02:03

I will be feeling inspired. If it happens.