• Beastie Boys
• Donovan
• Guns N’ Roses
• Laura Nyro
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• The Small Faces/The Faces
• Freddie King (although he made the “early influences” category and not the main list of “performers” — i.e. the list of people actually deemed worthy of mention as inductees on the ray-dee-oh – so I don’t really know…but even with the inclusion of King, that gives us a grand total of three inductees this year who are not white dudes.  And only one of them — Slash — is alive to accept the honor)

Listen, I don’t deny that everyone inducted this year are great artists/groups, who all have at least one song that I enjoy (even the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who I respect as artists but never really got into personally, at least have “Under the Bridge”), and honestly, it’s about damn time Donovan made the list, especially since “Hurdy Gurdy Man” is basically what Led Zeppelin would have been if they’d had an elfin Scottish troubadour as their frontman rather than the virile golden god they ended up with.  But let’s take a look, for a second, at some of the nominees who didn’t get in this year…

• The Cure
• Eric B. and Rakim (who I admit I’d never heard of before, but according to the Hall of Fame’s website, they were a hugely influential hip-hop act from the mid-’80s.  Shows how much I know.)
• Heart
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (WTF — they’re not already in there yet?)
• Rufus with Chaka Khan (Rufus being the name of the band Chaka got her start in.  Which I may have been made slightly aware of during an episode of Pop Up Video, but can’t remember.  Yet again, shows how much I know)
• The Spinners
• War (sing it with me now, “Low…ri…der…somethin’ somethin’ somethin’…doo-doo-doo-dadoo-doo-doo, dadoo-doo-doo-doo”)
• Donna Summer

Yeah, so the list of nominees this year was not exactly lacking in diversity between races, sexes, and genres.  So it’s really quite odd that the select few who get to be inducted make up such a homogenous group.  It baffles me that acts like Heart, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, War (which is like a bazillion years old and definitely deserves some more recognition than “those guys who did the theme song for The George Lopez Show and whom Smash Mouth did a sub-par cover of”), and even Donna Summer (some arguments against Summer have been that “her music’s not rock ‘n’ roll, though”.  However, it’s clear that the Hall of Fame defines “rock ‘n’ roll” as ”popular music from the birth of ‘true rock ‘n’ roll’ in the fifties onwards”, so Donna Summer’s inclusion would not be any less consistent with the Hall of Fame’s guidelines than, say, Madonna or the Jackson 5) have yet to make it into the Hall of Fame even when they’ve all been around quite a bit longer than Guns ‘n’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, or the Beastie Boys (to be perfectly fair, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as a band are only a few years older than GNR and RHCP, and are actually preceded by the Beastie Boys by at least one year.  However, Joan Jett’s career dates back to the mid-70s, and yet she’s completely absent thus far from the Hall of Fame.  So with or without the Blackhearts — who are those guys, anyway? — Joan Jett is way way way overdue for an induction, people).

Not that I don’t have more to say on the issue, but if I go any further I might never get this thing posted, and anyway this Hall of Fame thing is getting dangerously close to being old news now.  And frankly, I’m getting tired of making myself into a rage monster just thinking about the whole thing.  So for now, that’s all folks!

First of all, it got me thinking of the differences and similarities between the two versions.  For one thing, the Hermits version didn’t sound a whole heck of a lot different from the Kinks version, and yet the very subtlety of those differences only enhanced the feeling that two completely disparate moods were being expressed between the two.  Now I realize that part of this observation might be colored by my own understanding of The Kinks and Herman’s Hermits from the standpoint of someone who was born long after both bands ceased to be contemporary and whose views of each – i.e. Kinks =”rock” and Herman’s Hermits = “pop” — are therefore inevitably informed by modern-day popular opinion and the retrospective pigeonholing of once unclassified groups into newly invented and ever-narrowing categories or “subgenres.”  But to me, there’s a trace of venom in the Kinks version that the Hermits version seems to lack completely.  I’d even go as far to say that Herman’s Hermits aren’t capable of the acidity, of the subtle mean-spiritedness that’s so prevalent in The Kinks’ body of work.  The Hermits’ softer edge does not necessarily make an inferior version of “Dandy;”[3] if anything, it makes both versions more interesting, because why bother covering something someone else has done if you’re not going to put your own spin on it?[4]  Like I said, it might just be that Peter “Herman” Noone — or his musical persona, anyway — comes off as a much more benign and amiable person than Ray Davies does,[5] but to me, while the Hermits version comes off as the kind of playful taunting that could only a close friend of the eponymous good-natured playboy could get away with, Davies’ tone on the same song is anything but friendly; he can barely contain its contempt (or perhaps bitter envy?) for the womanizing ne’er-do-well.

So that’s what the Herman’s Hermits version of “Dandy” got me thinking a couple of weeks ago.  But that’s not all.  It also reminded me of all those times I’ve thought critically (or maybe even not so critically) about cover songs, and all the times I’ve wanted to geek about the subject on here but never really had enough incentive to do so.  I’ve toyed several times with the idea of compiling a top-ten list revolving around cover songs, such as “Top Ten Cover Songs You’ve Never Heard” or “Top Ten Cover Songs That are at Least as Good as the Original.”  I’ve ultimately rejected such ideas for numerous reasons:  the tedium of choosing just a select few songs that I deem worthy out of an innumerable and ever-growing entirety of cover songs;[6] the presumptuous nature of phrases like “that you’ve never heard” or even “that are at least as good as the original”; the fact that “little-known cover” just as often means “song that is well known but, unbeknownst to many, is not the original version”;[7] the whole tricky question of, “if Singer-Songwriter A writes a song, Group B records it, and then, years later, Singer-Songwriter A decides to record the song themself, who’s covering who?”[8]  You get the idea.  So I figured I’m gonna make this a regular, recurring feature on this blog instead.  ‘Cause I’ve got a lot to say about different interpretations of songs, and one blog post isn’t gonna be enough to say all I’ve gotta say.  Plus, this’ll give me a lot more to blog about on a regular basis.  Y’know, between the infrequent and ill-named Video of the Week posts; tirades against sexism, stupidity, bad radio, and what used to pass for music television; occasional Top-Ten lists involving long-defunct bands that no one my age has any excuse to know as much as I do about; and geekfests over Jack White/Noel Fielding/Muppets/etc.  Oh, yeah, and that apology to Kate Moss I’ve been meaning to write.

Oh, and feel free to post in the comments section.  I’d be happy to hear whatever suggestions my readers (readers?  What readers?) might have about what cover songs they’d like me to…well…cover here.  Or anything else you’d like to say, as long as it’s not nasty or immature (I’ll take criticism as long as it’s not name-call-y or irrational).  It gets lonely here sometimes.

Edit:  I couldn’t get the footnotes to work properly because I’m not sure how to link to another place in the same document.  So when you see a number between brackets, [like this], it means that there’s a correlating footnote at the bottom, but you’ll have to scroll down manually for now to read because I’m not tech-savvy enough.  I was hoping the footnotes would be a good alternative to the parenthetical asides that always seem to clutter up my posts, but I guess I’ll have to go back to posting like that for now.

That is all I’ve got for today, and hopefully I’ll be descending into sleepy-land myself within a few hours, ’cause I got work in the morning.

10.  “It’s a Hard Life” (The Works, 1984)

We start off here with a video that is inexplicable and camp-tacular (even by Queen’s standards).  This may not be the band’s most popular video (in fact, at least one or two of the band’s members openly despise this video), but in my personal opinion, its weirdness is what makes it so charming.  Looking like the mutant love child of a Shakespeare comedy and that one scene from Labyrinth, we see Freddie Mercury prancing around in what is almost certainly the weirdest outfit he’s ever worn (and for a man who’s not exactly known for dressing conservatively, that’s really saying something) and wearing a really strange wig in some scenes for no apparent reason, and Brian May playing a wicked solo on a skull.  Also, look closely for John Deacon walking around with his noble steed, a stuffed unicorn head on a long wooden stick.

9.  “The Invisible Man” (The Miracle, 1989)

There’s only one thing that pisses me off about this video, and that’s this:  no matter how much time I waste playing video games, not once have I ever gotten to the point where Queen emerge from my closet and dance around my room.  Talk about false advertising!  The kid in this video is basically the luckiest kid ever (the only possible exceptions being the kids in the video for “The Miracle”).  He even gets to wear John Deacon’s badass cowboy hat.  Lucky!  And yes, the song sounds eerily similar to the theme from Ghostbusters.  Let us speak no more of this.

8.  “Liar” (Queen, 1973)

If you need any more convincing that “Bohemian Rhapsody” was not, as is sometimes falsely claimed, the first music video ever, at least know this:  it wasn’t even Queen’s first.  “Liar” stands out from most of the videos in this list in that it is a simple performance video.  There’s no storyline, no characters outside of the band, nothing but the band performing on a brightly lighted stage that probably isn’t in front of a real audience.  Even the outfits are pretty low-key for a band that could have been considered part of the “glam rock” scene that was emerging in England around that time.  Still, stripped of the gimmicks they’d come to be known for both onstage and onscreen, Queen have an undeniably magnetic stage presence.  Despite its length of six and a half minutes and its simplicity, the video for “Liar” never bores.

7.  “Princes of the Universe” (A Kind of Magic, 1985)

Don’t ask me why, but movie tie-in music videos generally annoy me, especially when the totally awesome song was written for a possibly-not-so-awesome movie, thereby making it so that there isn’t a non-movie-tie-in version of the video that I can watch instead.  However, I’m going to make an exception for “Princes of the Universe,” a song that was written for Highlander and which, to my knowledge, doesn’t have a video that leaves out all those movie clips.  I haven’t even seen Highlander (but I do want to, for precisely three reasons, the Queen-filled soundtrack being one of them.  The other two, by the way, are Clancy Brown and kilts.  But mostly Clancy Brown).  Doesn’t matter.  The fact is, movie tie-in or not, this is one of the most epic music videos ever.  If anything, the connection with the movie makes the video all the more epic, because of the way it includes the band in the action of the movie, placing the band in the same setting as what I’m guessing is a pretty important scene in the movie.  There’s even a brief moment of interaction between Freddie and the film’s hero.  If that’s not epic, I don’t know what is.  As an added bonus, I don’t think anyone ever looked cooler with the wind blowing through his hair than Brian May.

6.  “Save Me” (The Game, 1980)

The video for “Save Me” is as gorgeous and moving as the tender love song it illustrates.  Half live-action performance video, and half animated narrative, this is perhaps Queen’s most beautiful video.  I’m at a loss to describe this video further than the fact that it features a dove motif (I’m a sucker for bird symbolism.  Actually, I’m a sucker for birds in general), so I’ll say no more about it and let the video speak for itself.

5.  “Bohemian Rhapsody” (A Night at the Opera, 1975)

Seriously, did you think I’d be able to list the top ten Queen videos without including this song?  While not my favorite Queen video by a long-shot (though still, within the spectrum of music videos in general, it ranks pretty darn high), “Bohemian Rhapsody” is undoubtedly the most influential, to the point that some people are still under the impression that it was the first music video ever.  If you’ve been paying attention to this blog (or even to this particular post), you’ll know this assumption to be false, yet the very fact that this is a widely-held belief shows how much of an impact the “Bohemian Rhapsody” has had on the history of music and the art of music video.  And perhaps, while not the first music video ever made (remember, Bob Dylan had 10 years on them), it may be one of the first music videos that truly mattered; that proved that the music video was an art form in and of itself and not just a creative way to promote a record.

4.  “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (The Game, 1979)

When I showed a friend of mine this video about a month ago, her response was that it was ”like a bisexual version of Grease.“  I couldn’t have described it better myself, but I’ll try:  to me, this is one of the all-time sexiest videos ever.  Sure, it’s kinda goofy and looks like it was made on a budget of $150 and maybe a blowjob here and there, but that doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because…Freddie Mercury.  Leather.  Superfluous close-up of Freddie’s leather-clad ass.  Brian May in awesome shades.   Freddie Mercury getting his shirt ripped off by his co-ed posse of backup dancers.  Roger Taylor without a shirt.  Freddie Mercury doing what could be described as pole-dancing.  Oh, and did I mention Freddie flippin’ Mercury?  As a side note, is it just me, or does Freddie kind of look like Jakob Dylan in this video?

3.  “One Vision” (A Kind of Magic, 1985)

Okay, this one starts out a little weird, with the warped voices and the wobbly still from the “Bohemian Rhapsody” video, but once you get past that, this is one fun video.  Filmed around the same time as the band’s legendary performance at Live Aid (note the logo on Brian May’s white t-shirt), the video shows the band recording the song and having one heck of a fun time in the process.  I get the impression that someone decided to put cameras in the studio, start recording, and just let the band do whatever the heck they felt like.  Turns out, they’re really silly boys.  Also, Brian really should have worn black tank tops more often.  Because of the sexy.

2.  “I’m Going Slightly Mad” (Innuendo, 1991)

The video for “I’m Going Slightly Mad” is delightful.  More delightful, in fact, than it has any right to be, considering the tragic reality surrounding both the song and the video.  Released mere months before his death, Freddie Mercury wrote this song about his experience with AIDS-induced dementia.  By the time the video was filmed, the singer’s illness necessitated the use of heavy makeup and black-and-white film to disguise his condition.  This same use of makeup and monochrome, however, is part of what makes this video so charming and quirky, which only makes it more tragic when one remembers that all that charm and quirk are coming from a man who’s months away from his death bed, and knows it.  In spite of all that, however, this video made me laugh the first time I saw it, and continues to make me smile.  It’s heartwarming to know that Freddie could still act goofy and irreverent even as his life was coming to a close.  This, along with all the weird goings-on in this video — Freddie’s banana wig, John Deacon as an unenthusiastic jester, and let’s not forget REAL LIVE PENGUINS (!!) along with Brian May in a penguin suit — make this one of my very favorites.

1.  “I Want to Break Free” (The Works, 1984)

This is by far the greatest Queen video of all time.  For lots of reasons, but if for nothing else, for the cross-dressing.  Which is apparently a reference to a long-running British soap opera called Coronation Street.  Which I’ve never seen, but I believe it.  What I don’t believe is that this video is actually marked as “age-restricted” on YouTube.  What the hell, YouTube?  Buncha homophobes need to get the hell over themselves.  They’re the ones who’ll have a bad influence on the children.  But anyway, enjoy the video.  Unless you’re one of those homophobes.  If you are, get your ignorant ass off of my blog and never darken my door again.

Bonus:  “The Great Pretender”(1987)

And here’s a little something from Freddie’s solo career:  his take on a classic by doo-wop group The Platters.  Features clips and re-enactments of his previous videos as both a member of Queen and as a solo artist, some of which are on this very list.  But mostly I decided to put this here because of the cross-dressing.  ‘Cause I’m kinda into that.  And because this video not only gives us a chance to see Freddie in drag once again, but also Roger Taylor.  And there was much rejoicing (coming from me, anyway).

…I really don’t have the time or energy right now to put much effort into today’s post.  But here, have some Muppets!  I’ll have some more stuff to post about tomorrow.

I’ll repeat that in case you didn’t catch that…BRIAN goddamn MAY appeared at this year’s VMAs.  Of all the “outrageous” things that went on at the VMAs this year that were worth publicizing, and somehow some popstar brat who’s never been born (no offense to Beyoncé, it’s just that the media needs to quit making pregnancy seem like some new phenomenon) got more attention than freakin’ Brian May.  Whose band was instrumental in popularizing (though not inventing, counter to popular belief) the music video format which made stations like MTV possible.  Who had such an influence on Lady Gaga that she took her freakin’ stage name from one of Queen’s songs.  So yeah, Brian May is KIND OF A BIG DEAL, even to MTV watchers and Lady Gaga fans, whether they’ve heard of them or not (though it boggles the mind that a Lady Gaga fan would not at least be aware of Queen, considering her namesake is no secret.  And as for MTV’s current audience…geez, kids these days).  But it’s the post-VMAs press that flabbergasts me.  I mean, you’d think nothing truly impressing happened this year the way they went on about a would-be drag king and a flippin’ fetus.

But then, to put everything into perspective, most of Lady Gaga’s backup dancers that night had probably never shared the stage with such an outrageous singer.  Brian, on the other hand…

Oh, so here’s the video of Lady Gaga (as her male alter-ego Jo Calderone) and Brian May’s performance at the VMAs.  And if you ask me, ”You and I” is a massive improvement over the suspiciously Madonna-esque “Born This Way” and the relatively forgettable “Judas.”  This video also confirms something I’ve been suspicious of for a long time:  Dave Grohl is a geek just like the rest of us.