First of all, a big ol' "THANK YOU!" to everyone who contributed to my most recentBattle Of The Bands (BOTB) installment. I sincerely appreciate your time and input.
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The contest took place [Link>HERE and it was Dogg versus Doggette (or, Eddie & The Hot Rods versus Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands). Eddie's rendition of the song 'All I Need Is Money' was the original and Elizabeth's was the cover version.
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I have always dug the original and I like Elizabeth's cover nearly as much. For me, it's kind of a 55% to 45% preference for Eddie's Hot Rods. Why? Well, musically, I really like what Elizabeth did with the tune; but lyrically, the song works better coming from a man. Plus, I gotta side with that super revved-up, pedal-to-the-metal "toxic masculinity". This is a song full of attitude, and I like hearing it roar down the road at "130 miles an hour while the singer smiles at the camera with a toothpick in his mouth". (130 Kudo Points if you caught that reference without having to search for it online.)
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My vote notwithstanding, Elizabeth and her Firebrands beat Eddie and his Hot Rods with their own song, but it was pert-dern close:
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FINAL TALLY
Eddie & The Hot Rods = 5 votes
Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands = 7 votes
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My thanks again to all y'all for stopping by here and making this BOTB installment a success.
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I hope to see y'all here again for my nextBattleon July 1st. We will be in the heart of Summer then, so I have something appropriately Beachy planned for that contest.
Yes, it's time once again for Battle Of The Bands (BOTB).
Alright, let's get on it. Let's get ON this thing!...
Aerosmith; Bad Company; The Clash; Devo; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Eddie & The Hot Rods; Foreigner; Gentle Giant; Hall & Oates; Janis Ian; Jefferson Airplane; Kansas; Led Zeppelin; Steve Miller; Randy Newman; Gillbert O'Sullivan; The Police; Queen; The Rolling Stones; Styx (aka REO Journey Styxwagon); 10cc; Uriah Heep; The Velvet Underground; Joe Walsh; X; Yes; and ZZ Top.
In my teen years - the era of "Licorice Pizza" (LPs) - I owned at least one album by every one of those musical artists above. But over the decades, my musical tastes changed so drastically that, today, I don't own even one album by any of those same artists. ...Except for one! Can you guess which one?
"Tha-aaa-at's right!!" ...Eddie & The Hot Rods. I bought their LP 'Teenage Depression' in 1976 or '77. I'd never even heard of them, but the album cover piqued my curiosity so I took a chance. (Sometimes you take a chance and get lucky with Eddie & The Hot Rods; other times you take a chance and wind up with "Daniel D!psh!t and the Diarrhetic Donkeys". Hopefully, you'll know the difference.)
That roll of the dice paid off so well for me that, later, when I sold off my LPs (Licorice Pizzas) and transitioned to compact discs, Eddie & The Hot Rods was the only group from that list above that I reacquired on CD. And, now, in my Geriatric Years (aka my 'Edward & The Sunday Drivers' years), I still play Eddie every once in a while.
FUNFACT: There was no "Eddie" in 'Eddie & The Hot Rods'..
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What genre of music was it? Contrary to some beliefs, it wasn't Punk Rock. In Britain, they called it [link> Pub Rock:
Pub Rock was a U.K.-based precursor to Punk, but while Punk was the sound of kids smashing up Rock's formal structures and stripping them to the frame, the pub bands were about taking Rock back to its breezy roots ... the music was meant to sound good played in a bar on a Friday night, accompanied by a few pints of beer. Pub Rock was also a strictly British phenomenon, and the pub stars best known in America are those who later hitched their wagon to the New Wave a few years later, such as Nick Lowe and Ian Dury.
Eddie & The Hot Rods played fast, loud originals and also some fast, loud covers. Their song 'All I Need Is Money' was an original. It has a sneaky rhythm which one might not catch after just one listen.
In my first ever BOTB installment [here> August 1, 2013, I highlighted how a musical arrangement can make a cover song seem like a completely different song from the original. This is another excellent example:.
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Elizabeth McQueen & The Firebrands (there actually *IS* an "Elizabeth" in the band) take the same song but slow down the tempo and add a semi-subtle 'Country' element to the sound which turns it into nearly a completely different animal. The first time I heard it, years ago, it "knocked me for a row of lib-labs!"
See which version you like better - the original by Eddie & The Hot Rods or the cover by Elizabeth & The Firebrands:.
