MAGGI PICAYUNE

Let me apologize in advance because the deadline is soon for the voting (Tuesday, Jan. 18) but if you love music as much as Mark, his brother Scott, the employees of Waterloo Records, Cheapo Records and me (I’m sure I’ve left out an army of others); then you should seriously consider throwing in your two cents.

I would be the first in line to say the cover thing has been done to death since the Nineties. Especially after the numerous live shows I saw at Liberty Lunch when the headliner did these for the encore: Matthew Sweet’s “Waterloo Sunset” and “Moonage Daydream,” The Posies’ “Surrender,” and Semisonic’s “Erotic City” and “I Got You” quickly come to mind. Those were great memories so I’m not necessarily complaining, it just became a cliche I blamed on the Hipsters. How I wish USB-based thumb drives containing the concerts I attended existed then; OK Go thankfully offered these last Spring at their sold-out Parish appearance.

There has been a resurgent trend with numerous bands doing covers collections for various reasons only they can answer. Most critics, especially the ones I’ve read on allmusic.com, accuse them of cynical, financial motivations. Like a chump, I buy these out of curiosity. I would like to know who influenced or inspired my favorite acts? To me such albums became a formal tradition through David Bowie’s Pin Ups, John Lennon’s Rock n’ Roll and the lesser known These Foolish Things by Bryan Ferry. Before you jump all over me, yes, I know about covers permeating hundreds of LPs decades earlier; there’s a scene in Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do! cementing it. The trio I listed were more of a watershed regarding such material; the covers are the “stars” and not the filler which was an industry practice.

The contemporary list in my collection is quite a hodgepodge too: Erasure, Rick Springfield, Southern Culture on the Skids, Nada Surf, Queensryche, Duran Duran, Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Easy Star All-Stars, The The, The Bird & The Bee, Tori Amos and Tom Jones…just to get started. When the bands change the arrangement with the well-known hits, they can be pretty awesome because they’ve put their DNA on the song. Other times it is a mess, a frequent complaint I caught on reviews of Peter Gabriel’s Scratch my Back from 2010.

As I get back to the point, voting on the Onion‘s site, I am wondering why they make their musical guests guest do something rather hackneyed and unoriginal. There’s a DJ in Australia who has been doing this for years anyway. It didn’t stop me from voting. I saved my picks and I’m willing to unashamedly share them. Keep in mind, some choices were dictated by pop-up menus the staff restricted me to, trust me, I can think of three better songs to go with from a John Hughes soundtrack than what they left me.

• Musik Non-Stop, Electro-Pop: Kraftwerk’s “The Model”
• Tom Petty: “The Waiting” – I could live without his crap.
• J. Hughes Soundtrack: Echo & the Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses”
• Classic Punk: Sex Pistols’ “Holiday in the Sun”
• Killer Duets: Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”
• Totally Eighties: Def Leppard’s “Photograph”
• Prince: “Red Corvette” – so tired of Raspberry Beret interpretations
• Power Pop: Big Star’s “September Gurls”
• Country Greats: Loretta Lynn’s “The Other Woman”
• Huey Lewis: “The Heart of Rock and Roll” – I smell irony.
• Brit Pop: Blur’s “Girls and Boys”
• Classic 120 Minutes: Social Distortion’s “Bad Luck”
• Yacht Rock: Christopher Cross’s “Run Like the Wind”
• The Top Vote Getters from Last Year: Clem Snide’s “Moment in the Sun”
• What other songs would you recommend?
  • “Surrender” from Cheap Trick, a good, rowdy tune
  • “Barracuda” from Heart, see what others can do on their guitars
  • “Through Being Cool” from Devo, for the electronic acts
• What Bands would you like to see on Undercover?
  • British Sea Power, they have a new album out so they’re touring
  • Weird Al, show the world he can rock as well as be funny
  • School of the Seven Bells, they did one of my favorite albums in 2010
• Should we invite bands that played in 2010 back? No way, keep it fresh.

Feel free to share your votes in the Comments.

The Seventies just wouldn’t be the same without his hit “Baker Street.” Hell, it was one of the first videos MTV showed during its first day on the air with his other single “Right Down the Line.”

As for the former song, the Foo Fighters do the coolest cover. Grohl replaces the saxophone parts with a very loud guitar. It’s not available through iTunes (just checked) but I scored my copy from the “My Hero” single CD, I dug it that much. Rick Springfield took a shot a few years back; his is good yet I don’t recall Rick drifting far from the original arrangement. Lastly, I also have Susanna Hoffs doing her take on “Stuck in the Middle with You,” a song Rafferty did before his solo career. We can all thank the underwhelming director Quentin Tarantino for permanently associating the tune with torturing policemen.

I remember reading about Rafferty’s reclusiveness, like he made a few hits and bailed. Sadly, the big piece on him in The Guardian said drinking was the real problem. Such a shame, especially when he was still making £80,000 ($125,000) annually from just “Baker Street.” My guess would be licensing in addition to ASCAP/BMI money.

There were other cool revelations in the article: his association with Billy Connolly and he worked on a Proclaimers record, before their (recycled) hit in the early Nineties.