Tuesday, December 20, 2022

Day Twenty


 
I Don't Know How But They Found Me -
Merry Christmas Everybody (Slade Cover)
Posted by at 8:41 AM
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3 comments:

  1. RedbeardDecember 20, 2022 at 1:54 PM

    Wow. A cover of a Slade song that I'd never heard before. Actually, I wasn't expecting to here Beatles overtones in this song but this cover actually brings it out, especially in the ending. (I went back and listened to the original, and yeah, it's definitely and wholly Slade.) Looking over the list of bands that covered the song, I was shocked to find that even Noel Gallagher, Cheap Trick, and Train covered the song as well. How Noel's version didn't sound more Beatles than IDKHBTFM's version I don't know, but he definitely went more acoustic than I expected.

    IDKHBTHFM's version is, to be honest, my favorite of the bunch. Well, outside of the original (because Slade).

    Thanks for this!

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    Replies
    1. BhagpussDecember 20, 2022 at 5:32 PM

      I know Slade aren't well-known in the US but I'm very surprised that you'd know the band at all but not this song. It's by far their best-known number in the UK, where it's been quite literally impossible to avoid during the holiday season for the last half-century or so. Even in 2022 I've heard it a dozen times over the speaker system in supermarkets and shops this Christmas. It's so far beyond a cliche now I don't even know how you'd describe it.

      That was what made finding this cover so amazing. It does what all great covers should do - lets you hear the song entirely anew, as if for the first time. I thought I'd never want to hear the thing again and yet I've played this version several times already. It does sound very Beatlesesque in places, you're right, something I'd never noticed before, and it has a weird melancholy, common to a surprising amount of Slade's output, that's always been hidden behind the big, glam brashness of the original.

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    2. RedbeardDecember 20, 2022 at 10:04 PM

      Ah, I know Slade because I was in my first year of high school when Keep Your Hands Off My Power Supply (the US version of The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome) was released back in 1984. Since Quiet Riot had made a stir by becoming the first metal act to top the charts in the US with a cover of Cum on Feel the Noize off of their Metal Health album, when Slade's Run Runaway and My Oh My hit the radio and were in heavy rotation on MTV, I took notice. I had the album on both cassette and LP, and I used to put Slade songs into my mix tapes I used when trooping back and forth to class back at university.

      When Mariah Carey seems to rule the Christmas airwaves with her All I Want For Christmas is You, this is a nice respite that never seems to get played here in the States.

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