Naked, intimate, slowed-down versions of pop songs

I knew someone in school who used to do a slow acoustic cover of "Freebird," and then when he got to the "Lord knows, I can't change" part he would just keep going until someone got the joke and kicked him off the stage.

lol

I want to come up with the stupidest possible song to do this with and make a youtube video. Maybe "Cotton-Eye Joe"?

i would love to hear cat power do a slow feline crawl through "they're coming to take me away ha-haa!".

Buy Me a Condo by Weird Al

"Smell Yo Dick"

cotton-eye joe would be good though. also "I Eat Cannibals".

"Smell Yo Dick" would be great except it's probably been done as one of those lol-white-people-covering-rap things.

true

maybe

"Earache My Eye"

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=smell+yo+dick+cover

re: cotton eyed joe, ahem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl1T-4tld6U

The epitome of the white people mock hip hop/R&B song: Alanis Morissette - My Humps

The Flying Lizards version of Summertime Blues is my favourite slowed down/stripped down cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9CRGKYXjCA

the enervated Telex cover of Rock Around the Clock is good one where someone is not going for intimate/earnest whatever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XGXHDMIJw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPclCrqOFic

I guess there are lots of bonus demo tracks on reissued albums that function as unofficial versions of this type of cover?

I want to come up with the stupidest possible song to do this with and make a youtube video.

La Macarena?

The epitome of the white people mock hip hop/R&B song: Alanis Morissette - My Humps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqhobdcYUE

^(In defense, this was by request, for charity)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG2EGOB9-lc

Steve Allen did something like that with rock and roll lyrics back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpxhEoV5IsE

I've a soft spot for this slide guitar cover of "Modern Love".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAypnmdiCEk

We had a whole thread and stuff about that Nina Gordon cover:

nina gordon - "straight outta compton"

so scary...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRPWs4V97YI

Then there's maturing artists doing this, cf. "Layla" unplugged and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4PzSSQtnp8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PWgA3PI7VQ

Tori Amos has a lot of these.

Heavy Vegetable covering The Rez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1XT0TOAboA

surprised this hasn't been here yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsC_SARyPzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05gsorRstTs

i was watching this sad movie starring Happy Gilmore about white people who are sad because they have cell phones and because they masturbate too much and they played this really groovy and dreamy cover of "I Feel Love" and I really liked it! don't know who it was by though. the movie was like American Beauty 2.0. and the song would not have been out of place in Donnie Darko II - The Darkening.

okay, I found it. don't know the band. I think it's really pretty!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DomLXOiLRCY

that's awesome!

Cat Power, when she sings:

"Then suddenly I got that old time feeling
I can't help it if I'm still in love with you." - from "still in love"

or

"can't you see, I'm on a losing streak..." - from "satisfaction"

Really liking this Bedhead cover of "Disorder," partly because I love the song so much, partly because this is such a perfect distillation of the sound of every show I went to in 1995 and 1996. Now I want to hear Vehicle Flips cover "Warsaw."

Fountains of Wayne's slow version of "Baby One More Time" is exactly what this thread consensus-hates and yet I feel deep affection for it. Maybe because, instead of the usual "acoustic singer-songwriter" goof, they play it as a pop song, just a different kind of pop song. The organ!

https://youtu.be/C6g4t93uuus

Crap, let me try that again?

https://youtu.be/C6g4t93uuus

the slowcore bands were best at this. bedhead, RHP, Low. did Codeine ever do any good covers?

Forget it, eephus, it's YouTubeTown.

This Mortal Coil still kinda my gold standard after all these years. though they didn't exactly do "pop" covers.

i was totally listening to fountains of wayne last night. they sounded great. i gave the cd to cyrus. he's been playing the same damn green day cd for weeks at bedtime. thought he could switch things up a bit.

did Codeine ever do any good covers?

They did a cover of Atmosphere for the Joy Division tribute album, but the original wasn't particularly upbeat to begin with.

Nice, torchy jazz-lounge interpretation of what I'd never guess started life as a KISS disco-metal hit if I didn't know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8KdInR0z5U

RHP did a good Kiss cover too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixwyr4NSHLI

did i hear a slowed down version of the pixies' Where Is My Mind? on a facebook advert?

(yes - http://jettemplates.com/video-detail.php?videoid=4NZdggNUvq0&title=Maxence-Cyrin---Where-Is-My-Mind-%28The-Pixies-Piano-Cover%29 )

I'm sticking with Animotion's version.

Karen O / Obsession:

https://youtu.be/g4n_VpzBQIA

Hmmm, maybe this will work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4n_VpzBQIA

Madder Rose did one of my favorites in this genre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHrg2_cmgvc

Also, belated lol at "sliding into first..." just registered with me.

lol goole

yeah that madder rose cover is nice. The original is so frenzied, so slowing it down actually reveals something new.

goole i need to hear that immediately

bedhead were mentioned a couple times upthread. their cover, with macha, of cher's "believe" is my ur-NISVOPS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYkrY9yxC0

it's important that it arrived during the height of the napster era, when music blogs were coming into their own, as this sort of thing is so emblematic of the internet era. and i can't think of a clearer example of "indie" artists subversively reinterpreting a "mainstream" pop song to expose something (supposedly) hidden within. that implied underground vs. overground narrative seems a bit archaic now.

^ which puts it at the intersection of old and new modes. appropriate, i suppose, for a song released in y2k.

with that subversive meaning gone, the practice has taken on a schlocky, talent show sort of quality.

That ILX dude's cover of GG Allin's "I Kill Everything I Fuck" was the best example of this.

heh I thought of that also

"I'm really, really bed"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Rt2x6kPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3S6hXmX1UY

Because obviously Daniel Johnston needed this treatment.

https://youtu.be/_d3DkoA1LUk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A3SxNtbPu2I

Hmm well posting the url was supposed to work. Version of The Stallion Pt. 3 which I like.

this stuff is insufferable and by now past the point of saturation. if it isn't a superhero movie with a slowed down Leonard Cohen song it's a new TV show with a Pixies cover or something. it's like the sincere form of muzak.

you're nothing these days without a quavery voice and a ukulele

Every time a white girl does an acoustic version of a trap song, a rapper has to do this 😭 pic.twitter.com/QboULucNiw

— i know dennis 🇳🇬 (@shOoObz) March 9, 2018