There's No Q In Karaoke

It's twenty years since Q magazine celebrated it's twentieth anniversary with a cover mounted CD of cover versions. Q folded in 2020, apart from a brief resurrection as an online publication in 2023-24, so there won't be a fortieth anniversary follow up.

i've dusted off my review from 2006, including one of the worst opening lines I think I've ever committed to page or screen...

Crudely speaking, the cover version is a bit like playing Russian Roulette: you never know if you’re going to get a misfire or be blown away. 

For every radical reworking, or serendipitous introduction to a great artist by way of the tribute, there has been a major crime committed against music. Q Covered, a cover-mounted freebie compilation to celebrate Q Magazine’s 20th anniversary in May, provides ample example of all of the above across it’s fourteen tracks. 

Franz Ferdinand kick off proceedings with a spirited version of Gwen Stefani’s What You Waiting For? that effortlessly slips in a blast of Billy Idol’s White Wedding at the song’s close. Proving that rock is again the new pop, 

Sugababes’ take on Arctic Monkeys’ I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor is more club-friendly but less convincing than the original. 

By and large, the subsequent tracks continue to be largely faithful to their source, with only The Flaming Lips and Nick Cave attempting to take the songs in a different direction. The former’s orchestral reprise of Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is ironically forgettable, but Cave’s reimagining of Pulp’s Disco 2000 becomes entirely his own. 

Elsewhere, Jack Johnson’s updated lyrical respin of Three Is The Magic Number is undermined by bland delivery, whilst Corinne Bailey Rae and Jamie Cullum provide technically accomplished but inevitably inferior versions of Björk and Jeff Buckley respectively. 

Paul Anka’s ill-advised swing version of Oasis’ Wonderwall enables the listener to consider Mike Flowers’ Pops’ previous lounge (piss)take in a more positive light, if nothing else. 

Unsurprisingly, the biggest musical aberration is committed by the terminally dull Travis. Thankfully, as the album’s closing song, it’s easy to skip on the CD player. Incredibly, the worthy Scots manage to out-bland Britney Spears with their ‘hilarious’ take on her breakthrough hit …Baby One More Time. 

Q Covered does have some other high points, however, in the trio of covers by Elbow, Richard Hawley and Editors. Elbow’s unusual choice - August And September, a track from The The’s 1989 album Mind Bomb – was in fact recorded for an abortive 2002 EP release from the latter’s 45 RPM singles collection. Whilst Guy Garvey and co. don’t quite match the emotional intensity of Matt Johnson’s original version, it’s inclusion here deservedly rescues a fine song from obscurity. 

Q Covered is probably not worth shelling out good money for on eBay, but at least half of the tracks warrant a listen, if you can find them on the internet.

1) What You Waiting For? / White Wedding (reprise) (cover of Gwen Stefani / Billy Idol): Franz Ferdinand

2) I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor (cover of Arctic Monkeys): Sugababes

3) Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (cover of Kylie Minogue): The Flaming Lips

4) Venus As A Boy (cover of Björk): Corinne Bailey Rae

5) August And September (cover of The The): Elbow

6) Some Candy Talking (cover of The Jesus & Mary Chain): Richard Hawley

7) Orange Crush (cover of R.E.M.): Editors

8) The Sun Always Shines On TV (cover of a-ha): Delays

9) The 3 R’s (Three Is The Magic Number) (cover of Robert Dorough): Jack Johnson

10) Wonderwall (cover of Oasis): Paul Anka

11) Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (cover of Jeff Buckley): Jamie Cullum

12) Disco 2000 (cover of Pulp): Nick Cave

13) There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (cover of The Smiths): The Magic Numbers

14) …Baby One More Time (cover of Britney Spears): Travis

Whilst you’re surfing, here are some other recommendations:

1) This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us (cover of Sparks): Billie Ray Martin

I was hoping to find Billie’s wonderfully creepy cover of Throbbing Gristle’s Persuasion from the 1990’s, but no joy. This is a demo intended for a Sparks tribute album and Ms Martin matches the Mael brothers inch for eccentric inch, not least for her rather fetching lisp!

[2026 note: sadly, Billie's demo techno take on Sparks has subsequently been lost in cyberspace, so I've included links to her live 'cabaret style' versions of both songs, performed in 2009]

2) Get Ur Freak On (cover of Missy ‘Misdemeanour’ Elliott): Ergo Phizmiz ft. Martha Moopette 

He’s been described as ‘a musical equivalent to Chris Morris’ and this is not a bad summation, with a track even more unsettling than the Missy ‘Misdemeanour’ Elliott version. You can also listen to radically different takes on Gwen Stefani, Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child, Kelis, as well as The Velvet Underground’s White Light / White Heat album in full.

3) Wish You Were Here (cover of Pink Floyd): Idha with Andy Bell 

Before you ask, it’s the Andy Bell of Oasis/Ride fame, not the Erasure front man, in case you were expecting a Scissor Sisters-style glam-disco cover of the Pink Floyd classic. Instead, Bell’s adds guitar to wife Idha’s gentle delivery, similar to her downbeat cover of Primal Scream’s I’m Losing More Than I’ll Ever Have (aka Loaded).

[2026 note: no longer available online and regretfully, one that I didn't download at the time]

4) Life On Mars (cover of David Bowie): The King’s Singers

Anyone who watched family ‘variety’ TV shows in the 1970s will shudder at the mention of this singing group. However, this is firm proof that G4 weren’t the first besuited blokes with cheesy grins and tight harmonies to tackle the Bowie classic.

[2026 note: The YT post description opens with "The King Singers elevate a Bowie classic to a new low!" I couldn't have put it better myself!]

5) Geburt Einer Nation (aka One Vision) (cover of Queen): Laibach

Laibach have covered Opus, The Rolling Stones, Europe, Edwin Starr, Jesus Christ Superstar, even The Beatles’ Let It Be album in it’s entirety. This version of the Queen song takes the song to another level. Jahwohl!

6) Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (cover of ABBA): The Leather Nun

The Leather Nun seemingly regretted recording it and never played the song live. Unsurprisingly, ABBA didn’t like it, either. Despite this, in my opinion their guitar laden version of this disco classic is one of the Leather Nun’s finest moments.

7) Do You Got Time (aka Let The Music Play) (mash-up of Shannon & Plaid): Leila

Shannon’s 1980’s electropop classic becomes slightly unhinged thanks to Leila Arab’s unsettling electronica underscore, courtesy of a mash-up with Plaid's 2001 single Squance. Check out Leila’s similarly edgy mash-ups featuring Aaliyah and Michael Jackson on her website.

[2006 note: Leila's website - and free downloads - no longer available, but you can find many of these and more over at Soundcloud]

8) Fade To Grey (cover of Visage): Nouvelle Vague 

Their previous album introduced us to their low-key, acoustic takes on the likes of The Undertones, The Sisters Of Mercy, Joy Division, The Dead Kennedys and The Clash. New album Bande A Part continues in the same vein – this track is accompanied by reimaginings of Echo and the Bunnymen, Blancmange, Lords Of The New Church and even Bauhaus’ seminal goth classic Bela Lugosi’s Dead.

[2006 note: with apologies to Ernie for yet more Nouvelle Vague]

9) Driving Home For Christmas (cover of Chris Rea): Pony Club

Whilst musically faithful to it’s source, Mark Cullen’s vocal delivery imbues Chris Rea’s seasonal classic with a growing sense of dread. Somehow, I sense it’s not because the turkey will have been overcooked again.

[2006 note: no longer available online]

10) Rock-A-Hula Baby (cover of Elvis Presley): Pop Will Eat Itself

This originally appeared on a largely crap 1990 NME compilation called The Last Temptation Of Elvis. The King would probably have spun in his grave a few times on hearing this, though mainly due to the infectious (but now overly familiar) breakbeat.

11) 1969 (cover of The Stooges): Solex

Elisabeth Esselink has been producing lo-fi gems since the late 1990s. Her take on The Stooges’ classic makes the narrator seem like they’re trying to stir up a revolution in a locked, empty room!

12) Lundi Bleu (aka Blue Monday) (cover of New Order): The Times

Ed Ball drops the beats per minute and produces a rumbling, bass-heavy monster of a track, sung in French. The CD single featured alternate versions of this New Order classic in German, Spanish and Japanese. Seek out the definitive 10-minute original album version on Pure, which throws in samples from A Clockwork Orange for good measure. 

[2006 note: this time, I've plumped for one of two remixes that The Grid produced for the single release. Even further removed from the original, and utterly brilliant]

There's No Time To Wonder

Mike is back, to tell us what he was up to on Valentine's Day....

Mélanie Pain is perhaps best known for her time in the band Nouvelle Vague, a popular beat combo who have been plying their trade for the past 23 years. Whilst Nouvelle Vague still tour despite the death of one of their founder members Olivier Libaux, Melanie has recently released her 4th solo album, How And Why. 

YouTube flagged up the singles off the new album and I enjoyed all the tracks from that album so it was nice to see a very random gig pop up in the vast metropolis which is Weston-super-Mare. 

It has to be said that Melanie is playing some rather random places on this tour. Shoreham, Hastings and the aforementioned Weston-super-Mare aren’t usual rock hangouts but more power to her for playing these venues. The ticket price of £20 when you also have Calexico’s lead guitarist supporting you seems very reasonable as the Blakehay Theatre was pretty tiny.

Brian López kicks off things early and it was well worth catching his set. He explains that between time touring with Calexico he has previously toured with Nouvelle Vague and felt a little differently than the French band members who were getting excited about some terrible town in the USA and buying all manner of shit foods. Coming from Tucson Arizona himself he wasn’t quite as excited at playing these godforsaken towns (which begs the question what did he make of Weston?) 

Road To Avalon, a song he co-wrote with KT Tunstall was excellent and his penultimate track was a cover of Pink Moon and he went on to talk about how great Nick Drake was. I’m always interested which artists cover which tracks of Mr. Drake. My thoughts are that the first two albums represent a happier Drake whereas the album Pink Moon is definitely ‘depressed Nick’. I wonder if it appeals to the tortured artist a bit more or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Anyway, Brian played a lovely short set which was appreciated by all in the venue.

Mélanie came on soon after and was backed by Brian and two other French musicians – Jérôme Pichon and Sébastien Collinet on guitar and bass. I’d discovered a clip from a French TV Channel recorded in December 2025 where Melanie and Jérôme played two songs and was pleased to see the live set up was more of a band than a duo. Sébastien on bass added an extra layer to the sound which made the night more enjoyable. The set list was predominantly tracks from the new album but as I like the new album very much this enhanced the overall experience.

Same kicked off the evening, followed by Dreamloop which immediately showed the quality within the new album. Senden Daha Guzel was next which was sung in its original Turkish and was a delight (see what I did there!)

A bit more back catalogue for the following tracks Celle De Mes 20 Ans from 2009 and then La Cigarette with a nod to Brigitte Bardot beforehand. This then morphed into The Killing Moon which was originally covered by Mélanie during her stint in Nouvelle Vague. A fabulous cover.

Next up was Magnolia, my favourite track from How And Why. Mélanie played trumpet kazoo whilst Sébastien’s bass burbled away nicely in the background. 

We were then asked what was the most important word in the French language, which turned out to be ‘Non’! This 2012 song included finger cymbals – not used enough in live performances IMHO.

Another instrument used for a cover of Kraftwerk’s The Model - a vibraslap - again, how often do you see one of those used at gigs you go to these days?

Tempo went down again for Cold Hands with Mélanie and Brian standing back to back and then Bluer Than Blue, which Mélanie explained represents how she feels many days and is a truly confessional song. Again a great song from the new album. 

The final track of the main set was Bye Bye Manchester which Mélanie said could have been called "Bye Bye Weston-super-Mare" but, let’s be honest, wouldn’t have scanned so well..

Encore was two more songs from How And Why – The Bare Truth Of Me and the title track. Again, Mélanie was slightly emotional describing the final song – you get the feeling that this is an artist that has gone through a bit over the years and that she is immensely proud of the latest album as she has every right to be.

 

My trip to Weston-super-Mare was a 145 mile round trip and well worth it! I would thoroughly recommend seeing Mélanie live and also her latest album is well worth checking out!

In Mike's covering email, he wrote, "I think you would have enjoyed it!" and, on the strength of this review, he wasn't wrong. Thanks so much, as always, Mike!

No setlist recreation this time, given the predominant focus on the current album (which you should buy) but it is listed below. I was also unable to source any photos from the show that Mike was at, so I've grabbed a trio of screen shots of Mélanie and band from their gig at Nochtspeicher in Hamburg on Tuesday (17th).

1) Same

2) Dreamloop

3) Senden Daha Guzel

4) Celle De Mes 20 Ans

5) La Cigarette

6) Colours In The Dark

7) The Killing Moon (Cover of Echo & The Bunnymen)

8) Magnolia

9) Non

10) The Model (Cover of Kraftwerk)

11) Cold Hands

12) Bluer Than Blue

13) My Name

14) Bye Bye Manchester

[Encore]

15) The Bare Truth Of Me

16) How And Why

Back On The Rack

My surprise that EMF seem to have snuck back in and have been releasing new songs for the past year or so was surpassed by discovering that they've also recorded a version of the Bauhaus classic Bela Lugosi's Dead.

What at first appears to be a fairly faithful rendition does eventually go sonically into more familiar Meff territory, but I guess the question was always going to be when rather than if.

On a couple of listens so far, I quite like it.

 

EMF are not the only ones to try their hands at Bela Lugosi's Dead, of course. Nouvelle Vague covered most of the indie disco bases in the mid-2000s, so it was perhaps inevitable that they'd have a go, slowing things down even further than you'd think possible.

No official video, but here's a version cut to footage of 2014 film A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night.

I was going to say that CHVRCHES delivered their take on the song "more recently" until I realised that it was over ten years ago! Lauren and co. deliver a punchy take, so in keeping with their singular sound that you'd think they had written the song.

Again, a fan-made video using excerpts from - what else? - the 1931 classic film adaptation of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi himself.

It would be a catastrophic failure on my part not to go back to the source, wouldn't it?

Not quite the original version, I've instead exhumed a 1982 performance by Bauhaus, a mere six minutes to close out music TV show Riverside. Judging by his opening position, Peter Murphy had clearly stocked up on Maxell cassettes by this point.

The first and the best, though respect to all of the above for their sterling efforts.

 

Bizarre Love Octangle

I love Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order. And clearly, many, many other artists do too. A brief trawl of t'internet will easily unearth over 100 cover versions, a large percentage complete dreck, with some interesting and engaging versions along the way.

Here's eight of 'em, starting with Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress. I'm biased as I think she's a great artist in her own right but she also has a way with a cover version and this take on Bizarre Love Triangle is a fine example. Originally released as part of her monthly Bandcamp exclusive series in 2022, it was given a bright remix by Mario McNulty for a single release earlier this year. You can get both versions, plus her wonderful take on This Is Yesterday on Bandcamp. If you're quick, you can also catch Catherine joining the Manics onstage to perform the latter at Glastonbury via BBC iPlayer.

 

The first cover version of Bizarre Love Triangle that I heard was on the John Peel Show, when he played Devine & Statton's stripped down acoustic rendition of the song, coming in at a lean 2:11. Alison Statton and Ian Devine (aka Ian Pincombe) respectively came from Young Marble Giants and Ludus and released a couple of albums in 1989 and 1990. Bizarre Love Triangle was released on 12" only, the B-side featuring a cover of Crystal Gayle's Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.

 

Australian popsters Frente! were clearly paying attention as they released a similar acoustic take as a single in 1994. The version seemed ubiquitous at the time and I assumed must have been a huge hit but my memory seems to be betraying me as the song didn't manage to crack the Top 75 in the UK. I like it, but not quite as much as Devine & Statton's version.

Someone else who was taking note of the above was Nouvelle Vague, who recorded their version in 2005 but don't appear to have released it until their Rarities compilation in 2019. If you like Nouvelle Vague's approach, you'll love it. If you don't, you won't.

 

I must admit, I'd forgotten all about South, a three-piece rock band who were unusually signed to James Lavelle's Mo Wax label in 2001. I think I've got a Death In Vegas or UNKLE remix of one of their songs knocking about somewhere in my collection. They released several albums in the Noughties and their version of Bizarre Love Triangle appeared in 2006. It's a livelier and largely inoffensive take on the song.

 

I'm going to have to disappoint Ernie from 27 Leggies as I couldn't find a Mandatory Reggae Version that was even halfway decent. Instead, here's Dub Colossus with an, erm, dub that if I'd heard without sight of the title would have been hard pressed to identify as a cover of Bizarre Love Triangle. Good though.

 

What's that? If only someone had recorded a ukelele-led instrumental version of Bizarre Love Triangle? Here's Hawaii's finest, Jake Shimabukuro, to oblige with a Daytrotter Session performed in Davenport, Iowa in 2018 (29th September, to be precise).

 

Last but not least is a version that I discovered and heard for the first time when preparing this post. Here are the brilliantly-named Fukushima Dolphin, busking on Brighton beachfront in 2022. Eight minutes of pure joy. Keep an eye on the couple to the right of the band, they are clearly having a whale of a time.

 

After all that, it seems a bit mean not to include the original and best, doesn't it? Oh, go on then.