Various things (including covers)*EDIT*

As you may or may not be aware, Google has launched their own browser called chrome. At the moment it’s not available on Macs or machines running Linux. As I’m neither, I decided to give it a shot. Verdict? It’s not too bad. Yes, there are some Firefox add on’s that I miss. Yes, it’s annoying having no way to switch off the spellchecker. Yes, the way I have my desktop set up makes switching tabs slightly annoying. But, the page that it opens to when I open a new tab is brilliant (it shows you the pages you visit most often) and it is significantly faster (even on my machine where everything runs slowly). I still need Firefox for downloading stuff from a couple of sites but, once that’s fixed, I think I’ll be sticking with Chrome.

Back at the begining of the year, Neil Gaiman and HarperCollins gave us the chance to read American Gods online, for free, for a month. Such was the success of that, they’re repeating the experience with Neverwhere. I’ve already got my copy and look forward to reading it.

The feedback for the story I mentioned a couple of entries ago has started to trickle through. People seem to like it, which is good. I always get worried when staring something new (particularly when it’s something completely new to me like a fantasy crime novel) that it won’t be liked. I aim to edit it tomorrow or Saturday, then get it sent away.

I’m quite the sad case. I found out on Monday that the new album from the freshly reformed New Kids On The Block was released in the States on Monday, so I downloaded it. It’s quite good. I also downloaded their greatest hits album which sent me back in time. Sadly, I knew most of the lyrics for the stuff on it.

I do have to say, though, that between the new NKOTB and 90210 (watched the first two episodes and can see it becoming a guilty pleasure) I feel like there’s a late 80’s – early 90’s revival going on. Which is quite scary.

And finally, there’s a thing going round for your top 5 cover versions. As i’m feeling generous, i’ve not only included the video for the cover, but also the original for the sake of comparison.

1) Hurt by Johnny Cash (original by Nine Inch Nails)

A lot of people doing this have named this song. And for good reason. It’s amazing.

When I first heard that Cash would be covering NIN, I thought it was nothing but a wind up. Then I heard it. Cash took a song that was about drug addiction and made it about him and his life. It’s almost an apology to June. Even Trent Reznor has said that Hurt is no longer a NIN song but a Johnny Cash song. American IV: The Man Comes Around is a brilliant album, but this is the shining jewel.

2) Hopelessly Devoted To You by Kirsten Chenoweth (original by Olivia Newton John)

I’ll admit a bit that this might be considered cheating as you will only have heard this if you watch Pushing Daisies (and if you watched it on ITV over here, not even then) but I don’t care. Chenoweth has an amazing singing voice and I love the way they worked it into the show.
Showrunner Bryan Fuller has threatened to write a musical episode and if the rest of the cast is even half as good as Chenoweth (and Ellen Greene [Audrey in Little Shop Of Horrors]) it will be good.

3) The Rip by Radiohead (original by Portishead)

A fairly new one as Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood (I think) from Radiohead perform an accoustic version of my personal favourite song from the latest Portishead album. I always new that both Yorke and Portishead singer Beth Gibbons had unique voices, but I never thought that one could sound so much like the other. I’d love for Portishead to cover a radiohead song (as long as it’s not the massively overrated Paranoid Android).

4) Dr Who theme by Orbital (original by Ron Grainier)

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The Dr Who theme is iconic. which is why I still can’t believe that Fox wanted to change it for the TV Movie. (Thank FSM that the BBC nixed that idea.) When the new version of the show was in the planning stages, Orbital, who readily admit to being fans of the show (and may or may not be related to William Hartnell, who played the First Doctor), were hoping to be asked to perform the theme. This is a taste of what we might have got.

(There is an album version of this song, but I much prefer the live version.)

And, as a bonus, the Dr Who theme performed by John Barrowman and David Tennant:

5) Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley (original by Leonard Cohen)

(I couldn’t find an embedable version of the proper video for either version of this song, so this’ll have to do instead.)

I have heard many versions of this song (including one which was re-written about former Boro player Mark Viduka), but none have ever been able to top Buckley’s version. I’ve loved this version of this song since I first heard it in the 3rd season finally of The West Wing. Simply beautiful and if the rest of his stuff is anything like this (haven’t heard anything else by him, a situation I’ll have to recify soon) then it’ll be amazing.

I was going to throw in as a bonus The Satuisfacton Skank, Fatboy Slim’s mash up of The Rockafeller Skank and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfation by The Rolling Stones, but I couldn’t find it on youtube. But you should hunt it down cos it rocks.

OK. I’m going to go to bed, dream about Daphne and resume counting down the days till she get’s here and is back in my arms. I can’t wait.

Laters.

Will

*EDIT*

Cos I accidentally put the NIN version of Hurt twice.

Will