Cheese's schtick is he does heavy metal, punk and rap songs in the milieu of Wayne Newton. And it's hilarious. He's got to be the whitest guy to refer to himself in first person as a 'nigga,' and his 'unplugged' (a la Tony Bennett) was a song by Old Dirty Bastard.
He even does 'Holiday in Cambodia,' complete with sleigh bells. It ranks up there with Hayseed Dixie, who do bluegrass renditions of KISS, AC/DC, Queen, etc.
So I hear on NPR today that Paul Anka is trying to do the exact same thing with his album, 'Rock Swings.' Listen to the interview, the guy has no sense of irony.
Anka even expurgates the lyrics to Nirvana. And he seems to think Sid Vicious' rendition of Anka's 'I Did It My Way' tune was a legitimate interpretation. Even refers to granting the license for it. Granting the license? Parody, Mr. Anka. The Sex Pistols were making fun of you and Sinatra, and didn't need your permission, it'd fall under fair usage.
Van Halen's 'Jump' as a 'new standard' with a big band. The problem is Anka's serious. It's not camp, it's not even the kind of misguided theory that someone famous for not singing (Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Sid Vicious) should record an album because they're famous. It's worse: Anka makes his fucking living as a singer, and if he's going to do this, he either needs to find material that actually suits him or have the kind of fun Richard Cheese has with it.
And no, it's not like when Johnny Cash did Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden songs. He picked tunes that he could work in his style, that were actually better done by Johnny Cash. 'Black Hole Sun' as a Rat-Pack-Vegas-lounge bit only works if it's a spoof.
Listen to the interview and judge for yourself. I think maybe Paul Anka was who Jill Sobule was thinking of when she wrote 'The Guy Who Doesn't Get It.'
3 comments:
I haven’t heard of him, and I’m not a fan of parody but there’s some guy round these parts –maybe he’s not German, but I for some reason think he is- Dick Dale, I believe.
He does the same thing but revamps everything into 50s rockabilly. I heard his ‘Chili Peppers “Give It Away”. It was amusing but I couldn’t actually picture listening to even 2 songs let alone a whole album or attend a concert.
Dick Dale, funny you should mention, isn't really a parody artist. At least as far as I know he's a prototype of the surf-rocker. That opening guitar bit in 'Pulp Fiction' is his big claim to fame, but I know at least one guy who seeks out chances to see Dale in concert. Supposedly a great showman.
I suppose The Reverend Horton Heat would at times be a parody of Dick Dale, though I think Heat's bit is probably aptly described by his own term, 'punkabilly.' Punk sensibilities coupled with genuine rockabilly and surf music. When Heat pokes fun, it's usually at, for instance, rednecks in cowboy boots (one of his songs is about interracial cowboy homosexual love). Richard Cheese is more in the vein of lampooning the Vegas lounge milieu and using sharply contrasting material, often to the delight of those parodied (his web site has him pictured with band members from Offspring and Limp Bizkit for instance).
I'm not one to dictate musical taste. I like Tony Bennett and early Sinatra, for instance, which Anka is basically an echo of. I even like Louis Prima, who elevated hokey to a high art.
So maybe I’m wrong about Anka’s album, but from the profile and samples I heard, the worst possible think would be to find out he’s sincere…
Sorry, Brave, not Dale.
I was walking away from work yesterday I stopped in my tracks and (outloud) said, „Dick BRAVE“. And he too seems to play with the theme of having such a phallic’d name as apparently an album is called “We Want Dick!”
http://www.raucousshop.co.uk/shop/product.asp?pid=7493
I too like and respect Tony Bennett, old Sinatra and while Prima was a ham, it’s overall simply fun stuff.
Sorry for the slip-up.
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