List | V/A | 'I Sometimes Wish I Was Famous' CD 1991

'A Swedish Tribute To Depeche Mode'

Track:	Name:	Artist:	Time:
1.	Dreaming Of Me	Page	3:49
2.	Something To Do	Cat Rapes Dog	4:18
3.	My Secret Garden	Elegant Machinery	3:32
4.	Photographic	Pouppée Fabrikk	5:26
5.	Puppets	Signal	4:19
6.	Fly On The Windscreen	Dead Eyes Open	5:19
7.	Blasphemous Rumours	Inside Treatment	5:51
8.	New Life	Cultivated Bimbo	3:34
9.	Stripped	Scene Of Ritual	4:44
10.	Ice Machine	S.P.O.C.K	3:14
11.	New Dress	Sol Niger	3:44
12.	The Things You Said	One Hit Wonder	4:44
13.	The Sun & The Rainfall	Ater Koma	5:30
14.	To Have And To Hold	No Hotel	6:26
15.	Never Let Me Down Again	Big Fish	5:39
16.	Shouldn't Have Done That	Systema The Affliction	5:33
	Total		75:42

Comments:

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the release of the first Depeche Mode single, the small Swedish label Energy Rekords decided to pay tribute to this very influential band of the genre. They gathered most of their own synth bands and some non-Energy bands as well (mostly from the label Accelerating Blue Fish) to create this compilation of Depeche Mode covers. The bands range from blippy synthpop to more aggressive EBM-industrial, so some of the songs are not very much like the original songs. I bought this some months after it was initially released; by the time I had already collected all the DM albums (see this for the full story) and I wanted more. So, I figured a cover album would be nice. I really liked some of the songs, but some I didn't care too much for. Either way, it was a great introduction for me to the world of Swedish synth pop, something I didn't even know it existed beyond Mobile Homes (which I didn't have either at the time). Since this is from the early days of Energy Rekords, many of the bands have evolved into something a whole lot better after this. I'm glad I followed their progress.

Page does a very blippy version of Dreaming Of Me, almost like if Vince Clarke himself would have remade it a few years after its initial release. It's very nice, but the vocals are a bit thin.

Cat Rapes Dog thunders on with a heavy version of Something To Do. It's a pretty good version, apart from the vocals. I've never been very fond of Joel's growling death-metal like doomsday voice.

Elegant Machinery brings us back to the world of blippy synth pop with My Secret Garden. Musically, I find this version more complex and interesting than the original, but the vocals are (while in tune and fairly good) a bit too Swedish sounding. A funny thing is just after the end of the track when the singer says "Jag sj÷ng r„tt mycket fel", indicating he wasn't too happy with his performance.

Pouppée Fabrikk does a stomping and heavy version of the normally rather blippy Photographic; the music is great and really powerful, but the vocals consist mostly of atonal shouts and growls. With better vocals, this could have been an excellent EBM/industrial cover of an excellent song.

The band Signal (which I've never heard from apart from on this compilation) does fairly decent cover of Puppets, but again with too weak vocals. The music is quite good, especially in certain parts, but nothing really outstanding.

Dead Eyes Open (nowadays called Automatic) is another band with rather weak vocals, but the music is really good. Their version of Fly On The Windscreen is not too close to the original, but not too far off either.

One of the highlights of this compilation is the really stomping version of Blasphemous Rumours by Inside Treatment. The music is really well crafted, harder and more powerful, but the vocals... well, they're OK in the chorus, but the growling whispers in the verse are a bit silly. Still, if you overlook that, it's a really great tune.

Cultivated Bimbo had already recorded a cover version of Something To Do, but since Cat Rapes Dog beat them to it on this compilation they did a cover of New Life instead. It's bouncy and blippy and not very much like the usual CB style, but rather good. The female guest vocals are a bit heavy on the Swedish accent, but still among the better of the CD.

Another band I've never heard of before or after this compilation is Scene Of Ritual; here they do a very different version of Stripped. It's not very good, especially the vocals are really bad. Well, the music is rather OK and noisy, but the vocals completely destroy the song. A pity, since I bet this would make a great song to do a cover version of.

Following that disappointment is the abolute highlight of the compilation: the excellent cover of Ice Machine by space-pop synth-blip sci-fi adventure band S.P.O.C.K. It's one of the two songs on the compilation that's actually better than the originals. The vocal melody has been slightly rearranged to fit the voice of Android (Hofman), and it sounds great. He's singing rather deep and dark (and hiding the fact that he can't really sing very well) over this depressive melody, with space blips and FX everywhere. What can I say? If you like blippy synth pop, Depeche Mode and SFX you'll love this one. I do. S.P.O.C.K also proved to be one of the bands of the compilation to catch my interest for quite a number of their own releases.

On to Sol Niger, who does a rather EBM-ish cover of New Dress. Again, a great song to do a cover of, but somehow they lose it. The vocals are a bit annoying for some reason. Not out of tune or with too heavy an accent, but... wrong for the track I feel. It's an OK cover, but not great.

As a relief after that, One Hit Wonder comes with a slow, soft cover of the excellent song The Things You Said. The vocals are quite good (Jarmo Olilla, who went on to form Daily Planet) and the music is nice, but it's perhaps a bit too close to the original. As the name of the band suggests, I suppose this was a one-off collaboration. I've never heard of this band again.

Ater Koma does a fairly good version of The Sun & The Rainfall, with music that's a bit stronger and more powerful than the original, but the vocals are the weakest part as with too many tracks on this CD. There are actually two vocal lines; one half spoken half growled, and one sung more melodically (albeit with a heavy Swedish accent) under it. I think the song would benefit from lifting the sung part a bit and lowering the spoken part, but then again it would probably be better to re-record the vocals entirely. Still, the music is good, rather like the original but with somewhat harsher sounds.

Then, another one of the true highlights: To Have And To Hold. It's been quite remade and extended, and it's more of a real song here than the original ever was. It's got an extremely pleasing added acidy synth line, which I really love. The vocals are (while still not being as good as Dave's) some of the best of the compilation. The band responsible for this excellent cover is No Hotel, which is two members from the band Scapa Flow. Sure, Scapa Flow is a great band, but this is a bit different than their usual stuff and it's very very good indeed. It's slow, it's dark, it's depressing, it's acidy, it's... simply great. I love it. I want more No Hotel. But Scapa Flow is a good substitute.

On to the next track: I've never been quite fond of the growling vocals of Big Fish, but apart from those their cover of Never Let Me Down Again is quite good. It's fairly slow and heavy, and with real dist guitar instead of the DM sampled.

Ending this compilation is another little short tune extended into a real song; this time it's Systema The Affliction (with Wallin/Joyce from Cultivated Bimbo) covering Shouldn't Have Done That. The vocals are vocoded, which is nice; better vocoded and melodic than natural and out of tune. The FX make the vocals sound like machine whispers, which in turn makes the song a bit more "scary". The music is quite close to the original, at least up to the little tinkly melody in the middle. Then it gets more stompy and heavy, a bit like Laibach drums. It's a quite good cover.

Phew, that was a lot of text to wade through. Here's a short recap. The covers can roughly be separated into four categories: 1) excellent, 2) fairly good, 3) pretty OK and 4) really bad. I'd put the bands in these categories: 1) would be No Hotel and S.P.O.C.K, 2) would be Page, Elegant Machinery, Cultivated Bimbo, One Hit Wonder, Systema The Affliction and Inside Treatment, 3) would be Cat Rapes Dog, Pouppée Fabrikk, Signal, Dead Eyes Open, Ater Koma, Scene Of Ritual and Big Fish, and 4) would be Sol Niger. Or something like that. It's a fairly good cover album with different styles of synthetic music; if you only like Depeche Mode you might get disappointed, but if you're into a more wide range from fluffy blips to heavy stomps this one might be for you. A pity though that most bands seem to have so bad vocalists. Then again, this was fairly early in the careers of most of these bands.

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