Ah, the « cover album syndrome ». A household name making a cover album is often seen as either a cash grab, a desperate –and paradoxal- attempt to stay relevant by releasing a product without much songwriting effort.
In the classic rock sphere, most recent attempts have been a kind of a mixed bag. The self-titled release of the super group “Hollywood Vampires” was mostly composed of cover songs, from Paul McCartney to Led Zeppelin. The album featured three rather bland original compositions which did not manage to convince me that all the fuss about this band was actually justified. The cover exercise in itself wasn’t even remotely that interesting, because the whole bunch of the album was made of very famous songs: Whole Lotta Love is probably Led Zeppelin’s most known song, and My Generation is pretty recognizable. And Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall isn’t exactly unknown, either.
On the other side of the spectrum, we find the poorly named Comeblack album by the Scorpions. This cover album was partly composed of bad cover songs of bands that inspired the German rocker (the Kinks, T. Rex, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles to name a few). The other half of the album was composed of songs where the band was covering their own past hits from the 80s and early 90s. The problem was that the arrangements were for the most part, exactly the same as their original versions with a slicker –and more compressed-, modern sound. I don’t know about you, but I fail to see the point in preferring a slicker but worse sounding version of Still Loving You or Rock You Like a Hurricane, when the originals sound perfect in all their 80s glory? And god, Klaus does sound fucking old on No One Like You…
People were intrigued when Ace Frehley of KISS fame announced his cover album, Origins vol. 1. Thankfully, I find it better than the two examples I just described.
Most of the album is made of cover songs from bands that inspired Ace. For the most part, the performances range from honest to pretty good, as one could expect. While he’s merely a decent singer, Ace really hasn’t lost his guitar chops!
What bothers me is the production: songs like Spanish Castle Magic and Bring it On Home don’t need a polished sound, but they actually cry for a very dirty sound. The very slick drum sound and compressed guitars work well on songs like Wild Thing, even if I find the song itself boring.
Ace’s cover of Emerald by Thin Lizzy is really good. That is, until he exchanges solos with Slash, who guests on the track. I was very disappointed because they sound like they’re just noodling, without listening to each other and trying to make a solo which fits the song. Magic Carpet Ride is cool, and White Room is pretty good too.
But the real shining star of Ace’s galaxy of songs is Fire and Water, which features no one else that KISS’ Paul Stanley on lead vocals. Now that was unexpected considering the constant bickering that has become the norm between current and former members of KISS. And do you know what was even more unexpected? Paul actually sounds great! He switches to a way lower register than usual, and it suits him very well.
While we’re talking about KISS, the attentive reader sure can’t help but witness that there are lots of KISS covers on this album. For the most part, these are Ace’s songs and here, the slick sound really works. Parasite especially shines, and Cold Gin does too while featuring Ace on lead vocals instead of Gene Simmons on the original version. Not the best but perhaps the most intriguing is the presence of Rock N’ Roll Hell, a song from the 1982 album Creatures of the Night, which featured Ace on its cover even if the Spaceman didn’t record or write a single note for it. Ace’s rendition, where he features on lead vocals once again instead of Gene, is pretty good. All in all, Ace’s take on covering KISS songs is far more convincing than the awful cover album Jingoku Retsuden, where the current KISS line up re-recorded KISS Klassics.
Far from being a great album, and while it doesn’t reach the heights of Ace’s versions of 2000 Man or New York Groove, Origins vol. 1 is a fun listen. Now I’ll be quite interested in knowing the tracklist for its supposed sequel…
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