Violet mentioned these lullaby versions of rock songs, which made me yelp and leap back in horror. Eeeek! Elevatorized versions of good music! Run away, run away!
I am a huge fan of bizarre cover versions of things — Ozzy Osbourne doing “Staying Alive,” a cabaret version of “Darling Nikki,” Laibach doing “Sympathy for the Devil,” Dread Zeppelin‘s entire oeuvre — but somehow to me there’s a difference between taking a different approach to a song (the covers) and trying to make it something it isn’t (lullabies).
As a perpetual insomniac, I can say with authority that there’s lots of good music out there that works to put people both large and small to sleep; there’s no need to mangle Metallica and U2 to do so. As one example here’s the playlist from M’s bedtime CD: Zzz (PDF, 26k). It runs 76 minutes, I think, and I can attest that it is impossible to listen to the whole thing while lying down without falling asleep. The first track is a little more upbeat, to catch the (small) listener’s attention, but after that it’s all zzzzzzzzz.
I bought an album last year by Grant Lee Buffalo called nineteeneighties after hearing one cover on the radio. When I brought it home and played the whole thing I realized in horror that I had bought a collection of slow, elevatoresque covers of some songs I really like (Pixies, etc.) — aimed at people our age who, I guess, are supposed to want to listen to slowed down, de-rocked versions of things. Needless to say, it’s not often played.
I do like a slow (but not elevatoresque) version of the Pixies’ “Wave of Mutilation” off the soundtrack of whatever movie that was with Christian Slater and the pirate radio station.
I just don’t see the attraction of de-rocked songs. If I wanted that, wouldn’t I just listen to 98.1 or some damn thing? Why wreck other stuff?