I must confess that, at first, upon seeing tribute albums to two of my all-time favorite artists, I winced. And I groaned. I’m very possessive of my favorites, after all. But then my curiosity was peaked. Cleopatra, after all, isn’t a label that is in the same vein as Tori or Radiohead. What would happen when their stable of goth, industrial and hardcore kids got their hands on these precious songs?
Songs of a Goddess, the Tori tribute, is the stronger of the two. There is something especially provocative about songs reinterpreted by someone of a different gender from the songwriter. Tori recognizes this; her next album is a cover album of songs originally written by men. And the best songs on this tribute album—or the most provocative ones—are the ones redone by male artists. Glampire’s vamped out “Bliss” is a fine cover brimming with showmanship, while Voltaire tweaks “Caught A Lite Sneeze” with a cello and violin and infuses it with an almost loungy vocal delivery, making it sometimes unrecognizable save for the lyrics. The same is true for Dragon Style’s “Space Dog."
The female vocalists tend to be more faithful, although they are sometimes backed by radical reinterpretations (like the rough treatment on “iieee” from Coal Chamber’s Meegs, and Simple’s raved-up version of “Raspberry Swirl”). Oddly, Tori’s own remixes takes away some of this effect because Toriphiles will have already heard radical reinterpretations of her songs from her singles.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t other winning moments; most notably October Hill’s synth-heavy interpretation of “Winter” and Amber Asylum’s predictably solid appearance on “Leather.”
The artists on Anyone Can Play Radiohead are less adventurous in their song selections, opting for a cross-section of Radiohead songs that would probably end up on a Greatest Hits album (because surely Radiohead will be gung-ho about slapping together one of those, right?).
Silent Gray takes the boldest move, turning “Fitter Happier” into a guitar-driven pop song. Aleister Einstein, meanwhile, deconstruct the famous guitars of “Creep” and trance it out into a dance song. Some songs are given extreme treatments, others are given faithful ones. Radiohead is so damned good, though, that it’s hard to be impressed with anything besides how damned good the originals are. It seems these bands don’t mind; they’re just as big fans as you are.
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