Ever hate a song so much you'd risk being fired?

[bunkaroo]

^^
From my own humble experience, a band where everybody has to fully approve new songs is rewarded with a very slow-growing and unresponsive repertoire. Been there, done that. It's not ideal in practice, though it sounds good in theory.

It wasn't too bad for us but we were pulling from a pool of largely 70's-90's rock which had less chance for stuff to be really offensive to any of our sensibilities.

I think the bigger problem was when we'd have one member gung-ho about a song and everyone else was indifferent so we'd give it a shot and many times it wouldn't go over well. So we would can it and basically our time was wasted.

I remember one of my bands spent a lot of time on Foreigner's "Cold As Ice" because our singer was just adamant it would go over awesome. So we learned it to a tee. Five of the six guys sang so we worked out a lot of the intricate vocal parts at the end and got it sounding great. Take it to the stage - crickets. It's one of those songs everyone gets excited when they hear the beginning, but they already don't give a **** at the one minute mark. So we just kept playing "Feels Like the First Time" to satisfy any Foreigner requirement, which is a lot more boring to play for me, but always went over.

 

[morgansterne]

I think a lot of tunes can be livened up and made fun again with new arrangements. I've had a reggae version of Brown Eyed Girl running through my head the past few days but the drummer (a cover band veteran who has played the song a thousand times) is so dead set against ever playing it again that he won't really listen to the idea.
Frequently I think there's one member of the band who is mentally tuned into the audience the best and knows what they'll like before they themselves do. In our case it's the lead singer and I trust his judgement even if he suggests songs I don't like.
We just started doing Rush's Subdivisions so in return for that I'll play just about anything!

 

[ChrisB2]

PLEASE GOD, SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!

It doesn't stop because lots of people want it to continue. Me included.

Jenny Jenny is lots of fun to play and one of the best-received songs we do. Why would we stop??

 

[malthumb]

Try playing in a band with a 23 year old female singer....

Okay...roger that......

........who's going on 16 in terms of musical taste.

We're lucky in that Leah is up on all the newer stuff, but also has a bit of an oldhead persona. She's responsible for adding "Into The Mystic" and "Finest Loving Man" to our set lists. She's also responsible for bringing in some of the newer stuff like "Paris" and "Rollin' In The Deep".

 

[MegaSwing]

So we just kept playing "Feels Like the First Time" to satisfy any Foreigner requirement, which is a lot more boring to play for me, but always went over.

There's other stuff in the Foreigner bag. I think FLTFT goes over better than CAI because it's got more muscle in the basic sound of it, and because of that it is more quintessentially Foreigner.

 

[pklima]

Try playing in a band with a 23 year old female singer who's going on 16 in terms of musical taste. I feel bad sometimes about how often we have to shoot down some of her suggestions but that's life for the time being. As it is, we play Katy Perry , Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert just to give examples. The upside is that it helps us to stay plugged into current music and she has alot of good looking friends.

Yup. I'm in one band with a 23-year-old female singer who likes Shakira as much as I do, and in another band with a 19-year-old female singer who likes Nicki Minaj as much as I do (and she's coming over in a half hour to rehearse). Life is great.

 

[MatticusMania]

Okay...roger that......

Hi, nice to meet you...

 

[ChrisB2]

I think a lot of tunes can be livened up and made fun again with new arrangements. I've had a reggae version of Brown Eyed Girl running through my head the past few days but the drummer (a cover band veteran who has played the song a thousand times) is so dead set against ever playing it again that he won't really listen to the idea.
Frequently I think there's one member of the band who is mentally tuned into the audience the best and knows what they'll like before they themselves do. In our case it's the lead singer and I trust his judgement even if he suggests songs I don't like.
We just started doing Rush's Subdivisions so in return for that I'll play just about anything!

Have you ever tried the Jimmy Buffet version? It has a little different feel than the VM version, maybe he would go for that?

I was in a band once that did the JB version. People didn't seem to care, they just like to sing along. The band I'm in now plays the VM version, which I prefer, but I did pick up some licks from the JB version that I liked, and that I plug into the VM version sometimes, just to keep it a little more fun for me.

Not that I need that so much... I have no problem playing worn-out songs, as long as the audience likes 'em.

 

[MegaSwing]

It wasn't too bad for us but we were pulling from a pool of largely 70's-90's rock which had less chance for stuff to be really offensive to any of our sensibilities.

I think the bigger problem was when we'd have one member gung-ho about a song and everyone else was indifferent so we'd give it a shot and many times it wouldn't go over well. So we would can it and basically our time was wasted.

No knowledge is wasted. The only way to know for sure is to put it out there with a convincing performance.

I never for a moment thought that there was a market for 'Sweet Caroline" anywhere outside of 1970. I resisted it until I just had to give in. Then I saw how all the drunk people go nuts to it. I remember thinking 'What the hell?'... I still scratch my head over that one.

 

[bunkaroo]

It doesn't stop because lots of people want it to continue. Me included.

Jenny Jenny is lots of fun to play and one of the best-received songs we do. Why would we stop??

I was never a big fan of this song but we almost always did it. I actually hated the vocal on the original track so it was more palatable with our own guy singing it.

 

[bunkaroo]

I think a lot of tunes can be livened up and made fun again with new arrangements. I've had a reggae version of Brown Eyed Girl running through my head the past few days but the drummer (a cover band veteran who has played the song a thousand times) is so dead set against ever playing it again that he won't really listen to the idea.

That can be a lot of fun and would definitely keep me more interested as there's more creativity involved than just playing note for note like the record.

My ex-band started doing a dual-guitar hard rock version of "Take On Me" by A-Ha that I know I would have had fun playing. I wanted to do a hard version of "25 or 6 to 4" with the dual lead guitars doing all the horn parts but we never got around to it.

 

[RoadRanger]

Besides, call me maybe is heavy on the strings, you have a strings section playing in the orchestra pit?

You can't figure out how to re-arrange a song for your band? Even the original artist has done it with a number of different instrumentations, check out youtube. One of my favorites is guitar, mandolin, and voice. If you listen to this version you can clearly see that she has one hell of a voice!

 

[malthumb]

..... If you listen to this version you can clearly see that she has one hell of a voice!

I'm holding out hope that she gets the opportunity to really flex her voice. Whitney Houston's first couple of albums were a bit "fluffy" before her producers finally let her unleash her full voice. I like the fact that Carly Rae's voice doesn't have the wafer thin whine that recent waves of hot girl singers have had.

 

[RoadRanger]

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|C|G| |CC CC CC CC|GG GG G(G GG)| x6
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[mozilla314]

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|C|G| |CC CC CC CC|GG GG G(G GG)| x6
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Looks like "Call Me Maybe"?

 

[RoadRanger]

Looks like "Call Me Maybe"?

Naw, completely different song :

 

[lancimouspitt]

I actually wouldn't mind being in a band that did some newer music just for a change.
Not that I like all of it,but I do get tired of going to meet with people,for next practice each person makes a 5 song list and,,,ehhh, it never fails.. Rocky Mountain Way,Road House Blues,Hard to Handle,etc.
I like all three of those songs but I'm at the point i never want to be in another band that has to play any of them.

 

[pedro]

I actually wouldn't mind being in a band that did some newer music just for a change.
Not that I like all of it,but I do get tired of going to meet with people,for next practice each person makes a 5 song list and,,,ehhh, it never fails.. Rocky Mountain Way,Road House Blues,Hard to Handle,etc.
I like all three of those songs but I'm at the point i never want to be in another band that has to play any of them.

I've been trying to inject a few more tunes from the 80's into our oldies band. Not that I have to contend with any of the tunes you mentioned above normally speaking but it seems to me that playing songs that are 40+ years old continues to garner an ever increasing share of a shrinking market. Its tough to get 60 year olds to go out on a friday or saturday night and when most shows don't start 'till 9-9:30 forget about it.

 

[lancimouspitt]

I've been trying to inject a few more tunes from the 80's into our oldies band. Not that I have to contend with any of the tunes you mentioned above normally speaking but it seems to me that playing songs that are 40+ years old continues to garner an ever increasing share of a shrinking market. Its tough to get 60 year olds to go out on a friday or saturday night and when most shows don't start 'till 9-9:30 forget about it.

Their a ton of songs from the 80's I would love to do in a cover band but have never had much luck in getting people excited to play them.
Billy Idol,The Tubes,Maybe even a little U2. Maybe it's just the musical geography of where I live,or perhaps it's just me.

 

[edpal]

I'm not into that song(Call Me Maybe) as originally done but personally I would gut my way through it. I have to wonder/ask if it fits your band's image(the original) or do you need to change it up anyway?
A keyboardist and I caem to heads recently because I told him I hate the sound of Chad Kruegar's voice in Nickleback(the processing hurts my head...sounds so fake and un-natural TO ME) - he took this to mean I would suck doing one of their songs. Ridiculous, our singer doesn't sound like CK so there is no issue. A song that I think the original is kinda sucky gives me carte blanche to try something different.
Funny thing though, if that was my 16 year old daughter performing the song I would probably love it, just because it is teenage sap.