The Art of the Cover Version - Nouvelle Vague and karaoke

As someone suckled on electronic music, I welcome most well done alternate versions of my favorite songs with open arms, be it remixes or covers. So with that in mind, it may come as quite a surprise that for the longest time, I staunchly refused to participate in karaoke. I believe the words "I hate karaoke," may have even escaped my lips a couple of times.

But then I fell in with a crowd of hardcore karaoke nerds (because those are the best ones to sing with). Every Sunday night, a group of ten to twenty devoted bedroom rockers bare their souls through the medium of karaoke at a divey Bostonian bar on Wilshire. And in that bar without a hard liquor license, something magic happens. These incredibly popular songs are given new life - either in parody or in surprising bouts of serious talent. Aside from the fact that there are elements of the magic and spontenaeity of a live performance (a guy last week brought two harmonicas to accompany Billy Joel's "Piano Man" and Tom Petty's "Last Dance with Mary Jane"), these songs become something completely different and new, both to the singer and to the individual.

So perhaps its fortuitous that the newest Nouvelle Vague album 3 comes out September 15th, just in time for prime karaoke season. The brainchild of French producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, Nouvelle Vague has more than a bit of a karaoke spirit to it. The producers employed French and Brazilian vocalists unfamiliar with the originals to sing bossa nova covers of new wave hits such as Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen in Love," and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Though there is a large element of kitsch, the songs have staying power do to the use of ingenue like vocals that add a genuine, endearing and sensual quality to songs from a typically darker genre. 3 is a venture away from bossa nova and further into sounds of Americana that is, in my opinon, successful. What I like so much about this album is that many of the original artists do backup vocals for covers of their songs, which lends an air of authenticity to the coquettish female vocals and gives a pretty damn official stamp of approval for all the purists out there.

Possibly my favorite track on this album is the opener "Master & Servant," originally sung by Depeche Mode. The lyrics are sexual in nature, but when paired with the digital production and detached vocals of Depeche Mode, they take on an almost religious connotation. Nouvelle Vague's version is downright intimate, with delicate female vocals curling suggestively around twanging guitars for a version that probably wouldn't make a bad song for a lap dance. The addition of Martin Gore's backing vocals add a bit of the creepiness from the more choral original for a song that smacks with "True Blood" naughtiness and just the right amount of hillbilly appeal. Other supported highlights include Echo and the Bunnymen's Ian McCullough sings backup on the dreamy and echoey "All My Colors."

Not to discredit the songs that are purely Nouvelle Vague, however, which are equally awesome. There is a whiskey gravity in the vocals on "The American" (originally by Simple Minds), and a hilarious childlike simplicity and dawdling pace to the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen." On this end of the spectrum, the other standout track is their version of Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Por Moi," which has left me wondering all week if an American bar will have a French song available for karaoke, if I will ever be able to sing as fast as Plastic Bertrand, and if Nouvelle Vague versions of songs will ever make it into the karaoke mix. The integrity of this frantic, French, Ramones sounding original manages to remain intact; the trademark "ooh oohs" and butchered French make the song cute, while the wise interpretation of the song to ska, which still pays homage to punk, helps retain the original's boisterous, free wheeling spirit.

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