A frighful discovery

[cathyr19355]

Tonight, I was looking at the latest crop of recommendations for me on Amazon when I came across this CD: Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Tool.

Yes, you got that right; Lullaby Renditions of Tool. It turns out that there's a whole line of covers of rock classics with titles of the formula "Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of X". The arrangers redo the originals as slowed-down instrumentals featuring gentle instruments such as glockenspiel and vibraphone, and market the results to rock-loving new parents as infant lullabies.

I started looking up some of the other covers after finding the Tool lullaby remake. I wasn't surprised to find the Beatles in the list. But Led Zeppelin? U2? Metallica? Pink Floyd? Some of the songs were still pretty good, even with the Stepford Lullaby treatment, while others were unrecognizable. The cover art on all of these has to be seen to be believed. Just chase the links.

The Nine Inch Nails one was still disturbing, despite the lullaby treatment. (Yes, oh yes, they had one for Nine Inch Nails. It's right here.)

Good grief. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Comments

[metalfatigue]

After the Bluegrass Tribute to Tool, this is not so surprising.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I'd bet that one at least was musically interesting. This is just an attempt to beat money out of new parents who are still missing their wild n' crazy clubbing days.

After listening to about 60 seconds of the Lullaby version of "Hurt," I'm almost tempted to say that any parent who plays it for his/her infant should be prosecuted for child abuse. Almost.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of Stretched Beethoven? A guy took a recording of the 9th Symphony and stretched it out to a full twenty-four hours:

More here:

http://www.park.nl/park_cms/public/index.php?thisarticle=118

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

And then there is "Run For Your Life;" all the Beatles music in order of release, as one file, sampled down to just over an hour:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/10/the-complete-be.html

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

That's silly--and I need to listen to it sometime. Thanks for the pointer.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

You can still recognize some of the songs.

And I swear at one point the Beatles shout "Oi! Oi! Oi!"

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Now I *really* need to listen to it. But not tonight--I'm beat.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

And then there is "Revolution 1" which is "Revolution" sampled down then slowed to produce a bizarre, jittery sound.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a version of Revolution that was played backward, in a search for secret messages or something silly like that?

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

A number of songs - including several by the Beatles - supposedly contain "backwards masking," words and phrases reversed and put into the recording as a concealed clue or subliminal message. The problem is that the human brain is hardwired to find spoken words, so people do find things, even when there's not really anything there.

The funniest was "I sing this song for Satan" from the Mister Ed theme.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't. That's geeky, but it doesn't reek of wrongness to me.

[shennan.livejournal.com]

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!

I am getting some for whenever I choose to reproduce. I already sing Guns-n-roses in lullaby form to my nieces and nephews :D

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Just don't buy 'em the Nine Inch Nails one. That's all I ask. ;-)

Deja ???

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, Cathy !

Well, there's a fancy-baby-stuf shoppe at the NW corner of Rittenhouse Square, with a display of these CDs in the window, and I remembered, after walking past it on Saturday, that I'd seen these CDs displayed there before and mentioned their existence to someone - who wasn't you. But for a while I thought that 'twas you it might have been...

Now, being an old fogie who's never heard any of Tool's _originals_...

Yours, John

Re: Deja ???

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Nope, wasn't you, John.

Since you don't know Tool, you'll have to take my word that the "Rockabye Baby" version of their stuff was pretty good. The Led Zeppelin one--not so much. :-)