Archive for the lullaby tag

Editors: Lullaby

It seems like I've been posting a lot of covers lately. I hope you don't mind, but here's another, a bit inspired by Nocturna this evening. If you've somehow managed to not hear Editors before, go check them out; this may be a cover, but it's an excellent example of their style.

In a statement about their most recent album and criticism of its tone, Tom Smith wrote, "dark is interesting, dark is exciting, dark can be funny, there’s real life in the dark, real life IS dark...I am so fucking bored of people asking us why we’re so “dark”, or worse questioning our integrity for being this way, this is how we do it, it excites us to express ourselves like this, to be honest we don't even understand what the alternative is and the alternatives we can imagine are too boring for us to even consider". Did he just write the Grufti Manifesto?*

Who better to rework a Cure song, then, than Editors? Smith invokes Ian Curtis to make Robert Smith's lyrics a little more paranoid, but I'm still not buying that he's really afraid of "the spider man". In fact, I suspect that he might just be inviting him over for dinner.

This track is taken from the BBC Radio 1 Established 1967 2 disc compilation, released in 2007 and bizarrely listed as being a Kaiser Chiefs album (they contributed the first track). It chronicles 40 years of the legendary radio show with 40 artists doing a cover for each year. Editors were assigned 1989; they certainly did right to choose a song off of Disintegration.

official website
Buy Editors on Amazon.com

*I prefer the word "grufti" because it's much more inclusive than "goth". I encourage you to use it as well!

Book of Love: Witchcraft

Kafé kasita, non kafela... once upon a time in clubland, Mr. Al Jourgensen of Ministry crafted a fan favorite dubbed "Everyday is Halloween," an anthem dedicated to the creatures of the night. Although a lasting classic, he wasn't the only one to cater that obviously to those who loved to dress in magic black.

For the more darkly inclined, there once lived a sugary sweet synthpop outlet from Philadelphia called Book of Love - a band that somehow seemed to fit in perfectly between the likes of Ministry and Bauhaus on the dancefloor. Though perhaps best known for three hits "Boy," "I Touch Roses," and "Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls," the band released four studio albums in total - their second entitled Lullaby featuring the single "Witchcraft."

Beginning with handclaps and bursting into a thumping beat, vocal delivery is key in this track, sung or perhaps rapped by all three female members of Book of Love posing as the six witches of the song - Enchantra, Endora, Tabitha, Esmerelda, Clara and Hagatha. Still with me? "Witchcraft" is performed as though they are the little gothic girls next door, crafting a potion to capture the one they love. With enough knowing winks to pop culture witchery (Angelique, Barnabas & Josette of the Dark Shadows fame as well as the all too clever "Bewitched" sample) and nursery rhymes to keep you humming for days, it also keeps you wondering what some of these ingredients really are. "Witchcraft" serves as the perfect track for any Halloween party... or for those who need to get all those daily interpretive dance moves out of their system.

official website
Lullaby on Amazon

For extra toil & troubles, try to dig up the 12" extended version of the song... even more beats, spells & witches to entrance you. Medusa even makes an appearance... what more can one mere mortal do? Stew & brew...