Thursday, June 03, 2010

Fascinating Photocopy



I'm carrying on a conversation with myself right now about musicians that I keep on coming back to. Artists that for any number of reason are compelling enough to demand my undivided attention when my default attention setting is divided/fractured/scattershot. One of those artists is Harry Nilsson. Nilsson's music doesn't exert any nostalgic pull for me - no memories of putting on Nilsson Schmilsson and making out with a girlfriend or cooking breakfast on a perfect morning before September 11th or anything like that, even though the undercurrents of melancholy and emotion in his music, combined with the world-weary romanticism of his lyrics, are virtually tailor-made for just that.

Vancouver's Makeout Videotape contribute a bouncing, fun and fuzzy cover to the growing body of Nilsson covers, which includes the Walkmen's recreation of the Pussycats album and Sinead O'Connor's take on this very song, too. The Eternal Triangle's version doesn't really hold a candle to Nilsson's version, of course - there's something too-straight sounding which dates it terribly, but I'm sure in their time they were considered exceptional arbiters of good taste, like Fairport Convention doing an album of Bacharach.

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