At the risk of giving a few fractional pennies to some miserly old jerks, assuming any of these videos are allowed through the ever-shifting wall of copyright shenanigans to be playable as embeds, behold:  one of the heaviest songs of all time, Helter Skelter, by Whomever & Pals.  This is a tune, and as I’ve been saying about tunes lately, good ones transcend their origins to become standards – insofar as we’re allowed to have those anymore.  A good tune sounds good even when divorced from its original context and style, like Hendrix covering Dylan.  Dig the original, and then let’s consider how it holds up to the manglings of cover artists.

Helter Skelter, by Some Bros

There are people who happen to be doing a cover, and there are literal cover bands.  This first example is one of the latter – the kind of people who make a living playing casinos and smaller venues for ehh dollars, by giving the audience exactly what the fuck they want.  The bands that originate songs often play those songs in concert however they please, riffing and changing them up.  Cover bands know you wanted to hear every Yo and Ungh and Grunt in the exact same time and tones as the album version, and they do this job very competently.

Helter Skelter, by Magical Mystery Doors

OK, good job.  But too faithful!  This doesn’t get us anywhere near the spirit of the original, which is a heaviness that comes from the soul.  They tried to bring a new flavor to it by medleying with Zepp, but this only highlighted the fact these guys are incapable of innovating on preexisting material.  Or unwilling.  It isn’t a true medley; it just stops and starts.  Even so, I respect the hustle.

To me an artist should bring their signature style to a cover.  With the most successful bands – the Hall of Rock alums – the style is what we want from them.  I found Bon Jovi doing a cover live and eh, the vocals were a lil’ jovey, but it was too faithful, not interesting at all.  Aerosmith fared better only by merit of Steven Tyler’s vocals being so distinctive.  It was equally low effort.  To me, Mötley Crüe did a much better job.  They crüed this shit more than anybody on the list brought a style of their own.  That said, with this particular band, how good of a thing is that?

Helter Skelter, by Mötley Crüe

Siouxsie and the Banshees likewise bansheed their version well, tho I think it’s much less heavy than it should be.  U2 were in high asshole mode on their cover, fucking up the lyrics on purpose.  Raw talent made it almost tolerable, but not fucking quite.  Bizarrely, I found some other covers that fucked up the lyrics in the same way as Bono.  Were they covering the U2 cover?  Gross.  Rob Zombie’s duet with Marilyn Manson had decent production quality, which is better than most of the videos I’m posting, but it was an uninteresting waste of time.

Pat Benatar did a fine job but was, again, too faithful.  But that got me thinking about lady covers, and this one was pretty damn good.

Helter Skelter, by Dana Fuchs

That said, maybe as I was watching this I just wasn’t in the mood for a raggedy throat blastin’ rock broad, as much as that’s a very cool thing to be.  Respect, but it wasn’t for me at the moment.  Still, I carried on with the ladies.  Now forgive me, the quality of sound on this next video is just horrid.  But I thought they did very well for high schoolers.  I hope they are high schoolers.  Like the more virtuous and experienced ronk dragon above, these kids brought something new to the song.  Not as much, not as showy, but it’s there, if you listen close thru the painful crappiness of the video.  It’s most obvious on the solo.  Shreddin’.

Helter Skelter, by Heiress

Let’s pull away from horrible ass quality and back into the realm of actually good sounds.  Here is another young-ass group of youngsters fronted by a lady, doing a good job of it.  The arrangement is, again, bringing some original spirit to the cover, and so it becomes obviously superior to the cover band version.  However, while the singer has a great voice and does well, she doesn’t make it very interesting.  I have a suspicion if I could hear the above girl thru the grime, her voice would be a fifth as powerful and skilled as the below girl, but I’d like the performance better.  But also, the band did a great job of making this one distinctive and heavy.

Helter Skelter, by Hündersins

Here’s another indie band with good modern production value, and this is an interesting one to me.  I think there’s a name for this genre they’re working in and I’m not familiar enough with millenial ronk to put my finger on it.  You can hear the influence of pop punk like Blink 182, but it’s more hardcore.  Was MCR like this at all?  Is it called hardcore?  Some other kinda core?  Whatever the case, it’s distinct.  He sings so clearly and nicely, it’s kinda funny in contrast to the rest.  He isn’t vamping, isn’t playing into his own ego or enjoying the art of the impression too much, and I appreciate it.  Also, props to the drummer’s t-shirt.

Helter Skelter, by Joker’s Hand

Is it bad that I also like these boys because the lead singer is very beautiful to me?  Probably.  That is a freakin’ beautiful young guy.  Mwah.  Even so, they were definitely getting away from putting an interesting spin on it, edging closer to that cover band approach of just being very competent.  Close, but their genre predilections and his nice singing helps them clear that trap.

I had to save the best for last.  Here’s the thing most of the coverers did not understand.  This song is about the instruments as much as – or even more than – the vocals!  I did not find what I wanted when I was seeking a cover for Helter Skelter on this occasion.  I was hoping to hear a deconstruction, a reconstruction, maybe an industrial or electronic version.  Still, in making the cover instrumental, Asterism made it rock harder than all of the above.  Get dusted, y’all.

Helter Skelter, by Asterism

So fucking heavy.  And u kno what’s funny?  Asterism is apparently a cover band.

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