The Way of the Vaselines
The Vaslines have sort of been hovering on the edge of my consciousness ever since I was 12 and obsessed with Incesticide but it's only over the past few days that I've really, really focused on the question of what I think of this band, listening to The Way of the Vaselines over and over again. One striking thing, to me, is that though I'm innately suspicious of this conclusion, the first nine tracks appear to me to be uniformly superior to the final ten.
More to the point, is the fraught question of those Nirvana covers. Kurt Cobain's renditions of "Molly's Lips," "Jesus Don't Want Me for a Sunbeam," and (especially) "Son of a Gun" are all better than the originals. What's more, relative to their mates on the first half of the album, these three songs appear particularly weak. "Rory Rides Me Raw," "You Think You're a Man," "Slushy," and "Dying for It," in particular, are clearly superior to those three. One possibility is that Nirvana deliberately selected Vaselines tracks that, while good, are not their strongest work; knowing that these were flawed tunes that Nirvana was capable of improving. To my, "Dying for It" makes this especially possible since it more closely resembles a Nirvana song than do the three they actually covered. Faced with a really great track, however, Cobain chose to be influenced rather than to cover. However, another slightly more disturbing possibility occurs to me. Namely that the perceived quality gap between the covered and the non-covered songs is an illusion. Maybe I prefer the non-covered ones to the covered ones because, due to a quirk of chronology, my subjective experience clearly holds that the Nirvana versions are the originals and the Vaselines are doing covers. Perhaps a subtle -- and factually confused -- narrative of authenticity is clouding my ability to see (or, I suppose, "hear") what's really going on.
Comments
I also discovered the Vaselines (as well as the Meat Puppets and Lead Belly) through hearing Nirvana covers. I've never thought about which versions I liked better, though. They're just different, not better or worse.
Although the strings and the slower tempo on Nirvana's cover of "In the Pines" made it a bit more haunting than Lead Belly's original.
i disagree that the songs you mention are superior to the three Nirvana chose (esp. "Molly's Lips" and "Son On A Gun"). i'd pick those three over most of the others, any day - especially to do as covers. "Molly" and "Son" are happy, bouncy, pleasantly-dumb, incredibly hooky, up-tempo, sing-along songs. "Rory" is a dirge, by comparison, and "You Think..." doesn't have that great dumb hook. etc.
i really doubt Nirvana was so calculating to choose weaker tracks thinking that they could improve them more than they could other tracks. i'd guess that those three songs were probably just Kurt's favorites from the Vaseline's record.
i just can't hear Nirvana doing "MonsterPuss", on record, anyway. maybe as a drunken third encore or something.
now about all those Meat Puppet covers on "Unplugged"...
Maybe the Manfred Mann version of "Blinded By the Light" really is better than the Springsteen version, and it's not just simply the case that you heard it first and more often.
It does seem odd that you would choose similarity to a Nirvana song as an indicator of quality for the Vaselines, who were an indie pop band straight out of the same scene as Beat Happening and the Softies. I mean, if you don't like sweet, distinctly unmasculine-sounding pop music, fair enough, but that's sort of what they were after.
Well, the Vaselines were a part of the same indiepop scene as Beat Happening in that they were recording around the same time. But they were from Scotland, not Washington. I've always tried to evaluate older music on its own merits at the time it came out. So as with Beat Happening, with the Vaselines you have a couple of kids who can't play instruments get moved, for whatever reason, to start recording records. They create a pretty unique sound for the time (most pop music in 1987 was highly produced), a punk attitude with a very different feel. And it was good. So good that it heavily influenced an American kid from the Northwest and he covered a few of their songs in his own path-forging band. It's hard to hear the Vaselines without thinking of Nirvana, but definitely what they were when they came out was quite mind-blowing, even compared to other indie acts of the time.
....can I throw a mention in here of Eugenius (formerly Captain America), Eugene Kelly's post-Vaselines project? One MP3 can be found here: http://aquariumdrunk.blogspot.com/2006/08/eugenius-oomalama.html
This may be a heretical opinion, but I'd say that I dig Eugenius more than the Vaselines -- a little more polished, but every bit as fun...
You're right about "You Think You're A Man," being a highlight of this record, but just to confuse you even more regarding your beliefs about authenticity, it's a cover of a song by Divine. (I've never heard the original; is it good?)
I too heard the Nirvana versions of these songs first, so the originals sounded weird to me on first listen; but I've probably now listened to WotV 100 times since the last time I listened to Incesticide, and the Vaselines versions now sound like the "real ones." Nirvana's "Molly's Lips" doesn't have the honking bike horn at the chorus, right? Therefore it is incorrect.
Finally, the Nanjing punk band The Angry Jerks covers "You Think You're a Man" and it might be even better than the Vaselines version.
A subtle, factually-confused narrative of authenticity... I've always known there was an English major lurking inside of you, Matt.
A) I think good cover songs reinterpret the original, rather than just trying to improve on it. I actually really like the Vaselines versions of "Son of a Gun" and "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam", but for totally different reasons than I like the Nirvana cover versions. Take "Son of a Gun" - the Vaselines version is a sweet love song about monogamy and sex as a return to childhood, while the Nirvana version is a whiny tantrum about dependency and using a girl as a shield against an unfriendly world. At least that's how I interpret them. :-)
B) MY, you are really into this Nirvana cover issue, eh? ;-)
Actually, the Divine original of You Think You're a Man is a terrible Hi-NRG post-disco disaster. Though listening to it with the video is pretty funny. I would have to say that while I really like "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" as performed by Nirvana, I really prefer the Vaselines' version.
Matt:
If you like the Vaselines, you should also like Eugenius, which was Eugene Kelly's band after the Vaselines broke up. In particular, Mary Queen of Scots is a fine little album.
I come at this a little differently since I was familiar with the Vaselines songs before I'd heard the Nirvana versions. I think "Son of a Gun" is a wash and "Jesus" is a little better in Nirvana's rendition. But I have to insist that the Vaseline's "Molly's Lips" wipes the floor with Nirvana's, apart from the annoying horn honks. The decisive element for me is the beautiful lilt Frances McKee puts on the "she said" part, which just sounds so flat and stiff in the cover.
I'd also like to mention I met Eugene Kelly at a wedding once. No particular relevance, but I've never met anyone even remotely well-known, and this thread is probably the last time that will mean anything to anyone!
Just to throw in my opinion here, to round out the range of experience:
I heard the Nirvana versions first. I vastly prefer the Vaselines' versions of "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips" (honks included). I don't like any version of "Jesus Doesn't Etc.," and I hate "Rory" and "You Think You're a Man." I picked up Way of the Vaselines after reading Our Band Could Be Your Life (awesome book!), and pretty much hated it, "Son of a Gun" and "Molly's Lips" excepted.
By my lights, the original versions of SoaG and ML are full of spirit, pep, and silly fun; while I don't dislike Nirvana's versions, I think they have been drained of all that and converted into something close to Nirvana's default anguished wail. (BTW, I love Nirvana, I am not bagging on them here.)
I don't think subjective feelings of authenticity affect my appreciation of music. In fact, I often vastly prefer covers to the originals, especially when the originals are by classic rock bands. For instance, I love "Satisfaction" as performed by Devo, the Residents, and Cat Power, but can't stand it by the Rolling Stones. It makes me realize that bands I generally don't care actually do write songs I like, they just perform them in ways I don't like.
Please. Nirvana is one of the greatest bands of all time. Of course their versions are better than the Vaselines originals. Every cover Nirvana has ever done is better than the original. Better than the Vaselines. Better than the Meat Puppets. Better than David Bowie. Better than Shocking Blue.
I saw them live a dozen times. Once they did a Mudhoney cover and they blew the original out of the water. Whatever version you are talking about, the Nirvana version will be better.
I heard the Bowie, Vaselines, Mudhoney, Shocking Blue, Led Zeppelin, Meat Puppets, Velvet Underground originals first and there is still no comparison. If you can steal a song from Bowie and Led Zeppelin, you can steal a song from The Vaselines.
The Way of the Vaselines is the kind of album that it's perfectly pleasant to listen to straight through, but which has very few good playlist/mix-tape choices. I think "Son of the Gun" is the only cut on there that is in any of my playlists. Slanted and Enchanted is the same way; excellent album listening, but only "Summer Babe" is a really good single. Given that, I think whether "Molly's Lips" is better than "Rory Rides Me Raw" is irrelevant (though I find "Rory" and "You Think You're A Man" quite monotonous, personally), and only the quality of the album as a whole matters. It's funny, though; Way obviously wasn't intended to be an album, given that it's a complete discography and whatnot, and yet it works quite well as one.
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