REVIEW: Various Artists , What the World Needs Now: Big Deal
Recording Artists Perform the Songs of Burt Bacharach
- Scott Slonaker
Tribute albums have always been the favorite projects of indie labels. When the songs are already familiar, it cuts by half the name-recognition obstacle that any upstart label has to overcome.
So, it follows naturally that the New York pop label Big Deal Records might celebrate its fifth anniversary by choosing a classic pop craftsman like Burt Bacharach to pay their homage to. Bacharach's compositions have been remade before, for sure (one reason why a song like "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me" is so recognizable), but the chance for a group of acts who all generally have aspirations to three minutes of radio fame to get their hands on Burt's nuggets is tempting, for sure.
And, for the most part, Team Big Deal doesn't disappoint. The two most familiar tunes covered on the record, "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me", are right at the top, as read by Japan's Shonen Knife and the Absolute Zeros, respectively. The Knife's rendition is pleasantly foreign-sounding, all tinkly pianos and stilted girl-group harmonies. The Zeros speed up the tune most recognizable as an '80s hit for Naked Eyes to a Green Day-styled bounce. Obvious, but still fun.
The more classicist acts in Big Deal's stable use Bacharach's songs to indulge a few retro fantasies. The Wondermints, currently the best Beach Boys tribute band in the world (compliment), wheel out the moogs, horns, and layered harmonies for "Don't Go Breaking My Heart". Idle adopt a similar loungy stance for "Make it Easy on Yourself". Barely Pink's wide-eyed boyishness ends up perfectly suited for "It's Love That Really Counts".
Other artists are less worried about the "tribute" aspect. The Gladhands camp up "Promise Her Anything" with grin-inducing results, Splitsville (formerly known as the Greenberry Woods) graft a chunk of "Video Killed the Radio Star" onto "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (horrors!), and Cockeyed Ghost fuzz out "Walk on By", reducing the Dionne Warwick classic to a gibbering puddle of sonic Jell-O.
Special mentions should go to Hannah Cranna for giving the epic Carpenters hit "(They Long To Be) Close To You", a really tough song to do right, the old college try.
Not all of these remakes are going to appeal to everyone, especially hard-core Bacharachers, but there can never be enough (mostly) well-meaning pop bands in the world. At least as far as this critic is concerned.
