SELF CONTROL

Infernal

I’m not daft you know. I know this is a cover version. Well, one of those two sentences is certainly true at any rate. But this isn’t one of Infernal’s own tunes, it’s Laura Branigan’s. Mind you, for a 22 year old song, it’s held up well so they could’ve chosen worse. Not only that, they could’ve covered it worse too – this is a straight cover with no gimmicks and the singer’s even bothered to sing all the lyrics too. Blimey, there’s attention to detail for you. In fact, let’s be honest here, if we’re not comparing it to the original, this is a pretty good pop song. It’s certainly well above average for what it is – no, really. You imagine Chico getting his hands on this. Go on, I dare you. It’s a disturbing thought, isn’t it? A fiver says he’d find a way to insert his name into the title for one thing. Right, so that’s the good news for anyone who doesn’t remember the original. Now, for those of us who do, here’s how it stands up to La Branigan’s version. It doesn’t. Not even remotely. It doesn’t even come close and here’s why. Do you remember when I said Infernal had done a straight cover? You do? Fantastic, I like it when my huge and loyal army of readers pay attention. By the way, how are you both doing these days? Sorry, drifting away from the point for a second. So anyway, straight cover, yes? Yes. So straight in fact, that Infernal go into the studio, fire up the drum machine, leave it while they sing and play and then go home just after three minutes are up. That may work these days, but in 1984 you had to be a bit more inventive. If you wanted your song to hold its own against Break My Stride and Agadoo, you had to put in a bit of variety. So the beats change every so often, the tune veers from one direction to another and the singer keeps the whole thing together brilliantly – there’s also lots of echo effects too, but it was the eighties and it was the law or something. Put up against that, Infernal suddenly look inferior. Even so, their effort certainly stands up to what’s in the charts these days, so that has to be a good thing.

JUMP IN MY CAR

David Hasselhoff

Those Germans are a tough lot. They seem to take the idea of David Hasselhoff the singer seriously, for a start. I saw him sing Looking For Freedom when the Berlin Wall was being taken down, and one day, with the appropriate counselling, I may even come to terms with what I saw. The thing is though, he seems to be a good sport about his recently acquired cult status, and that goes a long way towards deflecting criticism – if you accept that people are buying your stuff because they think you’re a legend rather than a good singer, you can get away with nearly anything. After all, it’s the music business, you can’t get too serious about it or you’ll end up sitting on a stool, swaying from side to side as you sing and nobody wants to see that. Even his backing singers are giving him verbal on this seventies-Rolling-Stones sounding song, here he is offering them a lift home (what a gent), and they’re saying “No thank you sir”. Could be worse, I suppose, I originally thought they followed that up with “I know you’re gay” which seemed a tad uncalled for. Thank heavens for the rewind button, turns out they’re only singing “I know your game”. He still gets his way though, the silver-tongued devil, and gets one of them into his car (which, completely unpredictably, is KITT in the video). Then they argue, he tells her to get out and gives her a hand thanks to the ejector seat button. It’s all complete cobblers, of course, but it’s done with a smile on its face. I can’t recommend you buy it, though, as it doesn’t quite make it into the “so bad it’s good” category. Sorry. Ah well, at least he’s got the Pipex adverts, they’re not too bad, eh?