HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by pitkin88 » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:29 pm

darkmenace wrote:When it comes down to it Alice isn't really a musician so much as a lyricist and performer. So he's not likely to spearhead alternate versions of these songs unless someone else leads the way.


I think that is widely off base.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:05 pm

From pitkin88:
"I'm starting to think, as the proceeds are going to charity, that not too much thought is going into the arrangements."

No doubt Bob Ezrin will love that comment!

>This would also partially explain the thing sitting in the can for so long.

I think we've been through this before - the delay was primarily in waiting for people to be available to record their parts.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by pitkin88 » Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:17 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:From pitkin88:
"I'm starting to think, as the proceeds are going to charity, that not too much thought is going into the arrangements."

No doubt Bob Ezrin will love that comment!

>This would also partially explain the thing sitting in the can for so long.

I think we've been through this before - the delay was primarily in waiting for people to be available to record their parts.

Shall I call Bob and say sorry I think what we have heard so far is predictable by the book and generally disappointing?

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by darkmenace » Thu Aug 27, 2015 9:48 pm

pitkin88 wrote:
darkmenace wrote:
I think that is widely off base.
In what way?

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Aug 28, 2015 4:29 am

darkmenace wrote:
pitkin88 wrote:
darkmenace wrote:
I think that is widely off base.
In what way?

Alice has been in the business for years and at least in the solo years has been pretty much in control of what he does. He can play some guitar and keyboards. I'm pretty sure he has a grasp of what is going on musically and can tell when something needs to be changed or the arrangement is not quite working. I was told by someone here that he played a significant role in some arrangements of the bands songs and they cited Halo Of Flies where he had a lot of imput.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:29 am

From pitkin88:
"Shall I call Bob and say sorry"

No, there's no need for that.

>I think what we have heard so far is predictable by the book and generally disappointing?

What were you expecting though? These are rock songs that have been covered by a rock artist who was influenced by those songs? Were you expecting reggae versions?

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:32 am

From pitkin88:
"Alice has been in the business for years and at least in the solo years has been pretty much in control of what he does."

It depends on the project - sometimes it's more of a collaboration than others.

>He can play some guitar

Not very much though.

>and keyboards.

No, I don't think so.

> I was told by someone here that he played a significant role in some arrangements of the bands songs and they cited Halo Of Flies where he had a lot of imput.

That isn't a fair comparison. Those weren't cover versions.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by Si » Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:38 am

A_MichaelUK wrote: What were you expecting though? These are rock songs that have been covered by a rock artist who was influenced by those songs? Were you expecting reggae versions?
I think that's a little unfair. Personally I expected pretty much what we are getting, straight covers. BUT it's not that unusual for an artist to take a song and completely rework it or add something different or their own spin to it. Alice has done it before ('Because') but not really on HV (from what I've head so far).
And example would be the new intro to 'Whole Lotta Love' which is VERY cool, but then it goes in to a pretty straightforward cover.
I think its fair to have hoped for more differences, but I didn`t really expect them.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:34 am

I wrote:
"These are rock songs that have been covered by a rock artist who was influenced by those songs?"

There should be no question mark at the end of that sentence.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Aug 28, 2015 11:51 am

From Si:
"BUT it's not that unusual for an artist to take a song and completely rework it or add something different or their own spin to it."

Of course, that's true but I think that generally happens when you take a piece of material from another genre and do it in your own style. With what we've heard so far, that isn't really the case. The version of "Rock Around The Clock" that Telex did would be one of the best examples of that but in reality, most cover versions can very easily be recognised as being based on the the originals.

>Alice has done it before ('Because')

Well, that was arranged by George Martin and if I remember correctly, the arrangement is very similar to the original.

>And example would be the new intro to 'Whole Lotta Love' which is VERY cool, but then it goes in to a pretty straightforward cover.

Yes I agree, but if you completely change say, the melody or the basic structure of it, you may as well write a completely new song (which may have been a better idea to begin with).

>I think its fair to have hoped for more differences, but I didn`t really expect them.

That is what I'm saying and given that those songs influenced Alice to some degree and given that he really likes them, we were right not to have that expectation. If Pat Boone covered those songs (and he did something similar on that album he made), then I would have a different expectation.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by Si » Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:07 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:From Si:
>And example would be the new intro to 'Whole Lotta Love' which is VERY cool, but then it goes in to a pretty straightforward cover.

Yes I agree, but if you completely change say, the melody or the basic structure of it, you may as well write a completely new song (which may have been a better idea to begin with).
I agree in part, but then if you look at something like Tori Amos's 'Smells like Teen Spirit' the melody and structure are the same, but the result is very different.
Or look at what Dread Zeppelin did to endless Zep tracks.
I agree this is easier to do on something from another genre of music, but it's certainly not impossible.

And regarding 'Because' yes, the structure is maybe the same (I don`t really know the original) but Alice really added his own identity to the song. He doesn`t do that on most of what we have heard. True, it's not an AC album as such, and there is the suggestion he has done this on 'Jump In The Fire' (which we haven`t heard). And there's the change of lyric in 'Itchycoo Park' is amusing, but I think there were more chances to do things like that which for whatever reason they didn`t want to do.

I was thinking earlier that we often have people suggesting songs that Alice would sound good on, but the reality is that if he did the song, he is more likely to do it "straight" then do it the way WE envisage.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:25 pm

From Si:
"I agree in part, but then if you look at something like Tori Amos's 'Smells like Teen Spirit' the melody and structure are the same, but the result is very different."

Again, a different genre though.

>Or look at what Dread Zeppelin did to endless Zep tracks.

Again, that's the point I'm making.

>I agree this is easier to do on something from another genre of music, but it's certainly not impossible.

Yes but again, you can look at any of the cover songs Alice has done and they're all, for the most part, very faithful to the originals. I don't remember people whining about his version of "Pretty Ballerina" for example and that was very close to the original.

>And regarding 'Because' yes, the structure is maybe the same (I don`t really know the original) but Alice really added his own identity to the song.

In the vocal, yes.

>He doesn`t do that on most of what we have heard.

I don't think I totally agree with that. Once he starts singing, he doesn't sound like anyone else really.

>I was thinking earlier that we often have people suggesting songs that Alice would sound good on, but the reality is that if he did the song, he is more likely to do it "straight" then do it the way WE envisage.

Yes, exactly.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by pitkin88 » Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:47 pm

A_MichaelUK wrote:From pitkin88:
"Shall I call Bob and say sorry"

No, there's no need for that.

>I think what we have heard so far is predictable by the book and generally disappointing?

What were you expecting though? These are rock songs that have been covered by a rock artist who was influenced by those songs? Were you expecting reggae versions?

Yeah pretty much impossible to make a rock song any different than the original. :clap:

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by concolz » Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:54 pm

pitkin88 wrote:
A_MichaelUK wrote:From pitkin88:
What were you expecting though? These are rock songs that have been covered by a rock artist who was influenced by those songs? Were you expecting reggae versions?

Yeah pretty much impossible to make a rock song any different than the original. :clap:
For a master class in how to produce a brilliant cover, compare/contrast Husker Du's original 'Diane', with Therapy's version. Both rock bands; the former's a template of grunge fuzziness, the latter a brooding, chilling epic. It shows what can be achieved.

HD: https://youtu.be/VTy8GGyUgBQ
Therapy: https://youtu.be/foT91E_3kMc

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by sickthing » Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:07 am

A_MichaelUK wrote: "Yes but again, you can look at any of the cover songs Alice has done and they're all, for the most part, very faithful to the originals. I don't remember people whining about his version of "Pretty Ballerina" for example and that was very close to the original.
Perhaps because that was just one cover on a whole album of original songs. A whole album of straight covers with very little of the artist's stamp on the songs has very little appeal to me.

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by bigbradwolf » Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:21 am

Not sure if it's been mentioned already but Schools Out, Dead Drunk Friends, I Got A Line On You and My Generation now on youtube as vevo videos...Enjoy!

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:19 am

From pitkin88:
"Yeah pretty much impossible to make a rock song any different than the original."

Try not to put words in my mouth and remember you're supposed to be posting in good faith. Again, you don't say what you were expecting. What would you do if you were covering those songs?

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:21 am

From concolz:
"Both rock bands

They weren't really similar though.

>the former's a template of grunge fuzziness, the latter a brooding, chilling epic. It shows what can be achieved.

What happens if someone prefers the original?

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by A_MichaelUK » Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:25 am

From sickthing:
"A whole album of straight covers with very little of the artist's stamp on the songs has very little appeal to me."

I don't disagree but some of you are behaving as if this album is the end of the world or something. All it is, is a side - project done for fun. I really don't think it was ever intended to compete with "Killer" or "Welcome To My Nightmare".

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Re: HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES TRACK LISTING REVEALED

Post by recoop » Sat Aug 29, 2015 9:47 am

bigbradwolf wrote:Not sure if it's been mentioned already but Schools Out, Dead Drunk Friends, I Got A Line On You and My Generation now on youtube as vevo videos...Enjoy!
Good spot-listened to them again this morning- on SO,I got a line and MG I can hear enough difference from originals and past covers to interest me. I like DDF (the chorus? behind sounds a bit like the Muppets crossed with a London musical to me)

I haven't heard much else but on strength of these four tracks and the track list in total I will buy it on CD. I am sure the CD sound will reveal more subtle sonic improvements to my laptop.

The only question is whether to buy straight away or wait until the definitive, all inclusive CD with bonus tracks (whenever that might be-any clues anyone?)
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