Like every other 30-ish townie I know, I’m a sometime DJ. I’m not a DJ of the scratchascratcha variety, of course; I’m strictly from the “stand there and play songs I like” school, which usually means that I get to watch the songs that you like totally bomb in front of many people. (A few months ago, Sly and the Family Stone’s “Love City” straight-up cleared the dance floor. So I had to play one of my legion Prince requests to get everybody back out there. Sigh.) Anyway, the other day I decided to give Frankie Smith’s izzle progenitor “Double Dutch Bus” a shot. So I jumped on iTunes and bought the first version that came up, which was curiously spelled “Double Duth Bus”. I didn’t listen to it because I didn’t have time. I just burned her to a CD and jetted over to the bar.
Bad idea. This was not Frankie Smith’s original “Double Dutch Bus”. This was not even Raven-Symone’s “Double Dutch Bus”. This was some heinous rerecording: “Double Duth Bus” (which I think is just an honest misspelling…gives you an idea of the quality control at work here). I can’t find it on YouTube or anything and I’m not bringing the RIAA down on us for this piece of poo, but trust me when I say it is awful. It has one of those unimaginative early-’90s beats that’s heavy on the hi-hats and light on the bass. It’s slathered in synth horns, and Frankie himself grunts along like bad karaoke–which, now that I think about it, might actually be what Frankie is doing. I might as well have dropped “The Macarena” or perhaps “Rico Suave”. At least then I would have scored some irony points. Instead, all I got was 30 previously dancing people glowering at me with something close to hate. Being the former Boy Scout Tenderfoot that I am, I was prepared: I reached for my copy of Purple Rain. Sigh.
God knows why Frankie created this monstrosity. I suspect it was to capitalize on Snoop’s success, or maybe he’s not the rightsholder. All I can say is this: it must be stopped.
How about y’all? Have you ever been burned by bad cover versions? Ever bought a gas-station Greatest Hits before?
DDB is a piece of shite, regardless of who monkeys with it.
I want your dollar back.
I don’t think it counts as being burned (just monumentally annoyed for a minute or two) but I have definitely downloaded Marky Mark’s Good Vibrations when I was aiming for The Beach Boys. Now that I’m typing this out I’m wondering not just how exactly this could happen, but how it could happen more than once. (It has.)
I once accidentally bought the Straight Outta Compton anniversary edition tribute album. Really not good.
The live Firefall album I got at a gas station proved to be some of their worst work. Also it includes none of their hits.
@djmedi4: You take that back.
A friend and I once got a Gerry and the Pacemakers’ Greatest Hits cassette which consisted of “Ferry Across the Mersey”, some other old song we didn’t know, and a recent live concert where Gerry covered Billy Joel songs.
i bought an incredibly shoddy jimi hendrix comp once (from wh smiths i think), half of the tracks were just taped off the telly, or sounded like stuff hendrix had done as a session muso…
tom and i once djed at a wedding that was so white prince actually cleared the dancefloor. i think we ended up playing the stone roses to get them back…
I’ve intentionally bought fake Beatles albums. My favorite has a rousing version of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on it.
which usually means that I get to watch the songs that you like totally bomb in front of many people. (A few months ago, Sly and the Family Stone’s “Love City” straight-up cleared the dance floor.)
Let this be a lesson, Don’t let a boy do a DJ’s job. Please leave the Djing to the professionals.
@dan13l: Probably so re: professionalism, but that song jams it.
@CarsmileSteve: Wow. That IS white.
What Big Gray just said. Jeez! I can see Steve and Tom holding their heads in their hands.
When playing minor hockey as a kid I put my father in charge of getting “Whoomp! There It Is” by Tag Team on cassette. This was exceedingly important because it was selected as our chosen theme music for the local hockey tournament (beating out 2Unlimited and Kenny Loggins!). I was mortified when he picked up “Whoot! There It Is” by 95 South. In retrospect my Pa was right to pick up the 95 South version, but when I was nine this was traumatic pants-down moment.
@Big Gray.: I’m a little ways away from trying my hand at DJing and seeing my favourite songs clear the floor like the ebola virus. Any advice for a novice DJ? Should I be shouting this like “Ibiza 96!”?
Fatboy Slim used to play this track (or a bootleg that liberally sampled it) in his live sets.
Some time ago, I was DJing and a girl came up to me and told me, “Seriously, this isn’t working for anyone…” I wanted to crawl into a hole…
I dunno about bad cover versions, but I was out a few nights ago and heard a UK reggae version of “American Boy” called “Jamaican Boy” which kind of cracked everyone in the place up…
@VelvetCake: I actually have a copy of the G-Rated version of the cassingle of “Straight Outta Compton” from my college radio days and it is friggin hilarious because they didn’t just bleep the curses, they re-recorded the whole track for radio airplay so that you ended up with rhymes like:
“Straight Outta Compton/ Integrated brother named Ice Cube” and “When I’m caught off/ I got a sawed-off/ Kick knowledge and bodies get hauled off.”
I can still remember those wack bowlderized rhymes almost 20 years later.
Well, this makes me feel better about having obtained my original DDB mp3 from the, er, dark back alleys of the Internet.
But Lucas, if you still need the original send me a note offline. ;-) You know how to find me.
@Jay-C: On the plus side it would make for the basis of a dope Hold Steady track.
@Champion: The Drinker: If I yelled “Ibiza ’96″ nobody would know what I was talking about. They would just want to hear more Michael Jackson. That’s all they ever want to hear.