Tuesday 6 May 2014

Funky Covers

I have a passion for disco. I have a passion for anything danceable, and I love sequins, so it all pretty much follows. I also, now, have a passion for funk. I mean, I have liked Jamiroquai for years, and my childhood in Ohio was great for its choice of oldies radio stations and the fact that we actually *listened* to them back then. Sorry if I just stepped on anyone's toes with that Jamiroquai statement. But anyway, a friend of mine and I recently did some serious dancing at a local club night when I heard something that stopped me in my tracks: a funk cover of Star Wars. And I was in love.

Meco - Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk


The... it... I recently watched the original Star Wars trilogy. Spoilers ahead! For all the (valid) criticisms people make about it, I still think it's pretty neat. Princess Leia is one of the only women, but she is badass in a non-self-conscious way (and flirts with two men at once without any implications as to her moral character!), Lando Calrissian is one of the only characters of colour in the movie but he does own and run an entire freakin' planet, and... I even liked the Ewoks, and the pseudo-Buddhist non-violent message that sometimes (selectively) happened. Don't even mention Han Solo, who is one of the sexiest characters ever to grace a screen.

One of my favourite bits of the series is after Darth Vader kills Ben Kenobi and it cuts to a second of him kicking the empty pile of robes where Kenobi once was. What did you think would happen, Darth? Did you think that he had just suddenly gotten very small, or something?

Anyway, after stumbling across this gem, I started looking for other things Meco had covered. He did Star Trek:

Meco - Star Trek Medley

He did The Wizard of Oz:

Meco - Wizard of OZ Theme (Part 1)


Speaking of the Wizard of Oz--there is an entire funk redo of the original movie. It's called "The Wiz," and I, for one, prefer it. It's got Diana Ross and Michael Jackson as Dorothy and the Scarecrow (in an all-black cast). Here's the scarecrow's song:

Michael Jackson - You Can't Win - The Wiz

Going purely on youtube's recommendations (it knows me well by now), I moved on to another funk artist, and discovered something odd about the ET theme:

Walter Murphy - Themes from E.T. and More

Namely... well, does anyone else think that it sounds almost exactly like the Star Wars main theme, with a few notes moved around? I'm guessing that's exactly what they did. If you want more of him, he's funked up Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach:

Walter Murphy - Toccata And Funk

Moving on: Drag diva Divine doing a cover of the Four Seasons.

Divine - Walk Like A Man

These last two are not covers of anything, or redoes, but Eurovision is coming up, and we need to mark it. So here we go, some fabulous Germans representing Germany in 1979:

Dschinghis Khan - Dschinghis Khan

And lastly, here they are again, glorifying Russia.

Dschinghis Khan - Moskau

That is one amazing cloak. Ah hah hah hah ha! EDIT: Susan on Facebook has just informed me that disco/space opera/science fiction crossover was an entire genre! Apparently the television show Buck Rogers in the 25th Century often featured a disco segment:

Buck Rogers Disco Inferno

Certainly looks like our hero knew how to put the smooth moves on humanoid alien ladies. I especially dig this roller disco scene, which appears to be the entertainment of choice for flirting over space-banquets with your spacefarer guests:

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