Apologies to my single-digit readership for not updating in a few months... but circumstances (procrastination, school, the need to make all blogs a substantial length, the rise and fall of the planned Phoenix Wright: The Musical publicity release and MICHAEL FUCKING HAMMOND) prolonged my absence. I have another mega-blog in the works, but right now I feel inspired to finally complete my ever-growing list of worst songs ever.

Some blogger dude on some website (might've been Roger Ebert, or PopMatters) recently pointed out that the true worst movies ever aren't the lowest-common-denominator ones - the Snakes on a Planes, Soul Planes, Epic/Date/Superhero Movies of the world, or anything involving Paris Hilton or Uwe Boll. Unless you're utterly deluded, you shouldn't actually expect anything of them, and even if you do spend your money or bandwidth, at least they're forgettable. On the other hand, the movies that people do expect something from, but are absolute, complete trainwrecks - Water World, Ishtar, Battlefield Earth, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet etc. - are truly terrifying.

Same goes for music. Though terrible, no one cares about Hanson or Simple Plan. So I've gone for artists who terrorized an unexpecting world on their debuts, or ones you thought were only average or unspectacular, the ones you heard years ago on Mix 101.1 FM before you realized half the songs they played were disco and got under your skin, hibernating and growing larger over the years until you randomly come across them again on YouTube at which point they cause you to wake up screaming, screaming in the night yelling, "LINDA PERRY'S MOUTH! LINDA PERRY'S MOUTH!" before the infinite blackness of Linda Perry's mouth swallows you, and you lapse into a restless sleep once again.

Public (internet) opinion seems to support most of these songs too, hurray for credibility. But someone has to compile them together.

6. (bonus track) Europe - The Final Countdown

Previously in Richard's saga to rock the formal, I...

• Managed to find enough time in busy uni students' schedules to rehearse the band, at least enough to be prepared
• Got maintenance to transport an entire PA system, microphones and amps
• Motivated Tim Shearer to write the schedule the day before, instead of on the day
• Still failed to stop him from changing it on the afternoon
  

On April 11 at the Scotch College Year 12 Dinner Dance, I...

• Was the non-existent eleventh passenger on a ten-person limousine
• Shafted the DJ until about 9:15
• Became totally shafted by his subwoofers afterwards
• Successfully sang Come On Come On and Supermassive Black Hole
• Fooled Chris O'Yang into thinking we were playing Rage Against the Machine, thus creating an eternal vendetta
• Wrongly assumed the bagpipes would be in tune (but Liam plays very well even when slightly tipsy... just way too sharp)
• Had peer pressure/lack of inhibitions overcome admittedly-not-very-elitist music nerdery temporarily (it isn't that hard to hate Soulja Boy!)
• Counted about five decent songs played by the DJ (Kanye West, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bon Jovi)
• Failed to get the DJ to play Gay Bar
• Failed at using a novelty blow-up guitar on the dancefloor
• Except for waiting an hour to hear Living On A Prayer just to air-guitar to the solo
• Did a better powerslide than Kyle Gass ever will
• Realized that headbanging inappropriately to shitty house music is the only dance move I have
• Was congratulated by people who previously never have and never again will talk to me
• Made absolutely no use of my suit coat/fancy cufflinks
• Wore the only totally unique post-modern bow tie hybrid
• Was not ditched by my partner, unlike certain blind daters
• Found Wes' phone planted by some douche in my keyboard bag
• Was forced to go to hockey the day after and copped a hockey ball to the left eye
• Have a swollen left eye after a post-formal brawl over my partner... you should see the other guy
• Will undoubtedly find the embarrassing footage on Facebook/MySpace/YouTube uploaded before the rocking out

I currently...

• Have yet to kill Levi for requesting the Macarena (and quite possibly the Spice Girls too)
• Have not quite regained my inhibitions, so if you want me for karaoke/public Guitar Hero ask now
• Am extremely grateful to Steve Stamopoulos, Tom Frederick, Simon Chandler and Brendan Vandermeer for being awesome bandmates, and for doing all the packing up
• Would also like to thank Bobby Eggleston for mixing/hanging around/packing up, Liam Brown for guest bagpipes and Chris/Anthony Spinosa for their inflatable guitar
• ...And Louise Liu for being a formal partner extremely tolerant of me running around frantically
• Feel the bizarre need to state that I did more at the formal than anyone else to idiosyncratically compensate for the fact that everyone else just has embarrassing photos

Scotch on the Rocks' setlist:
School's Out
Come On Come On
Time Is Running Out
***
Seven Nation Army (with Knights of Cydonia)
Supermassive Black Hole
Johnny B. Goode
It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)

I really wanted to like this cover album. I really did. And even though it fails miserably, I can probably find more redeeming qualities than most in the songs by Liars, Bell and Final Fantasy. I've yet to hear the previous tributes to OK Computer (I want a download, not a stream!) and Automatic for the People, so I can't make comparisons to those.

Post is the only Björk album I physically own, and admittedly the only one I've listened to at length, though I'm not incredibly familiar with it. I think I quite like Björk where I should love her. The more you love Björk's idiosyncrasies, the more you'll likely hate these covers.

I've tried to be descriptive here, so I can say "I told you so" when you download the album so you can complain about me being discouraging.

1. Liars - Army Of Me
The first song is generally not a good place to alienate your listeners by violently beating them into submission, especially indies with a low tolerance for sludge metal. Turns the original bassline from completely badass into a cacophonous beast, making its melody somewhat irrelevant whilst halving the song's tempo in the process. Not a bad idea, but the processed vocals and constantly abrasive atmosphere make it a difficult, even physically painful listen. Unfortunately, this is one of the stand-out (though not necessarily better) tracks here. A Black Sabbath-like version probably could've slowed the song without butchering it.

2. Dirty Projectors - Hyper-ballad
Puts a frivolous indie backing behind the song in the treble, stripping almost any emotion from it. What's worse is that the male vocalist sounds like a total twee pussy, and his tendency to vibrato EVERYTHING isn't helped by the disorienting delay between his singing in the left and right channels. And he actually vocalizes in the last chorus - something best left to your Mariah Careys and Celine Dions; at least they have technical ability.
The song is about Björk throwing her possessions off a steep cliff, leaving them to the jagged rocks below... and the original melodramatic music is incredibly fitting. This sounds like a kid dropping his marbles off the top of a small incline. Whilst the other songs are unremarkable, you can make out enough of the original in this for it to actually be offensive. Piss-weak.

3. High Places - The Modern Things
I always thought Björk was wailing "Chairman Mao!!" in the Icelandic part. High Places might have been similarly confounded with what to do with the rest of the song. The vocals here echo and delay, with stuttered string samples and electronic beats, sounding more like a half-baked idea than the final cut. This is the first track to really reflect the overall subdued, pseudo-electronic feel of the rest of the album.

4. Bell - It's Oh So Quiet
Her voice isn't bad at all, and the verses have a likeable colourful electronic piano self-described as having a "Mozart"-type quality. Though she sings powerfully in the chorus, it's let down by the original orchestra's replacement by offbeat drums and synths. It flattens the dynamic contrast and power of the song rather than sounding like a successful reinterpretation.

5. Pattern Is Movement - Enjoy
Reverbed, multitracked vocals over a dissonant, almost carnivalesque backing. Kind of interesting; still not listenable.

6. Evangelicals - You've Been Flirting Again
Vaguely tribal drums, vaguely swirling backing, vaguely intelligible lyrics. But clearly insignificant.

7. Xiu Xiu - Isobel
This seems to aim specifically for an avant-garde sound, pushing Björk into weirder, irrelevant tangents. Where Björk managed both individuality and solid songwriting, the overinflected vocals and occasional dissonant violin (replacing the soaring strings of the original) here just sound empty.

8. Final Fantasy & Ed Droste - Possibly Maybe
The wind/string instrument trills at the beginning sound very promising, but the song is more atmospheric than lush. Plodding programmed drums are introduced with the first chorus, and the strings' harmonies expand, but as often as not run off in wild, chromatic processed directions. While its feel is in the same vein as the last few, it's a slight improvement (though it doesn't need double-tracked vocals).

9. White Hinterland - I Miss You
The one live song of hers I've heard presented her as a typically beautiful folkie singer-songwriter - probably the wrong impression. Her vocals here sound distant, as if they've been recorded through a phone. Apparently her drummer "lost his kit", so he played on pots and pans instead... maybe more appropriate for a Björk song than a full drum kit. Slightly dissonant backing keyboards, check. Continues the heads-down atmosphere.

10. El Guincho - Cover Me
Uhh. Ironically for the song title, he seems to have done nothing of the sort. It sounds as if he's sampled his original cover of the song, copied and pasted totally unintelligible snippets, panned and processed them in sequence to give the illusion of change, and finally thrown a random dance beat behind it, because everyone knows Björk likes electronic drums. It's not a cover, it's not a reinterpretation, it's just grating and irrelevant.

11. Atlas Sound - Headphones
Nice to finally hear an acoustic guitar, but it's still buried behind vaguely electronic sounds and a distant, unintelligble vocal. But the original is equally distant, so intangible that I've never quite grasped it... so I can't really say if the cover's bad.

12. No Age - It's Oh So Quiet (Alternate Take)
They actually play the verse clarinet melody on guitar! That's the one good part. But the rest is not so much grunge/depressed alternative rock as a pastiche - like South Park's take on Marilyn Manson. He transforms Chef's original porno-funk Stinky Britches into a tuneless dirge. You know the sound - detuned, fuzzy power chords and a slurred, slacker vocal delivery containing no irony or self-awareness whatsoever.

I must admit, the worst tribute albums all have one redeeming quality - they make you appreciate the original artists more. If you disliked Björk's singing before this, you won't now.
Generally, I prefer covers that are reworkings, even unsuccessful ones, to weak run-throughs in the original style. But not these. The problem lies in that most of the artists here seem to feel as if a complete renovation is obligatory. A typical way of doing so is by trying to do another Jeff Buckley to Hallelujah, stripping the song down acoustically to its root chord progressions and soft vocals. Especially given the electronic nature of many of the tracks, such attempts would've been welcome here, even if lazily rendered. But here the self-indulgent covers sound as if the artists have tried to force more complexity into the originals whilst making them subdued at the same time. None of them reflect either Björk's brilliance or anything that could resemble their own bands' sound, whatever that is (I've previously heard of four of these artists, listened to one).

Remember that It's Oh So Quiet is a cover in itself, of jazz song Blow a Fuse by Betty Hutton. In the end, the fact that Björk makes the triumphant cover totally hers, and these artists' covers are weak, says everything about her and them.

Download Stereogum Presents... Enjoyed: A Tribute To Björk's Post
I encourage you to preview the tracks before downloading the zip, if you do. And make sure you do so out of curiosity, not an expectation of good music.

Download Big Heavy Stuff - Hyper-ballad (from triple j's Like A Version) - m4a format
Shows that Björk IS coverable. They do a decent acoustic adaptation made rather imposing by the use of a cello, making the original bassline much more audible.