Did you ever hear a song where the voice sounded so familiar but you couldn’t place it? When you found out who it was, did you ever think, “Why are they doing a song like that?”.
In a lot of cases, this happens when a band does a cover by another artist who has ZERO association to the type of music you’re used to the band playing. We know it now, but we ALL scratched our heads the first time Johnny Cash, country music’s outlaw pioneer, did “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, a late 80’s/early 90’s industrial rock giant.
Sometimes a band will just do a song that’s radically departed their norm and it takes a minute to comprehend that. Can you think of a few instances of that? “Snuff” by Slipknot comes to mind. Corey Taylor usually saves the ballads for Stone Sour. Bon Jovi went through a country phase and it’s hard to believe the guys doing “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” also wrote “Livin’ On A Prayer” that has been played during every…. EVERY single hockey game since 1987. Yes, the Rangers had a Stanley Cup team that heard ‘WHOA HO” after a commercial break.
Sometimes it’s cool to hear a band put something out that you wouldn’t expect, but not every band can get away with it. If you remember, Alice In Chains took some heat for Jar Of Flies in 1994 because it was “too acoustic” for the band that gave us “Man In The Box” and “Would?”. It took old-school Metallica fans THIRTY YEARS to admit “Enter Sandman” was a good song. Def Leppard put out an alternative-sounding album in the mid-90’s called Slang and it bombed.
It’s weird right? Why can a band like Linkin Park break out an Adele cover and NOT get chased out of the loading dock entrance back into their tour bus? One night, if you see me hanging out at a show, let’s talk about it…
(Photo: AP Newsroom)