Dread Zeppelin is a Led Zeppelin cover band that features a reggae band and an Elvis Presley impersonator for a lead singer. Apparently they’ve been doing this for about 20 years. This is the music video for their version of ‘Heartbreaker’, which also seems to be mixed with the Elvis song, ‘Heartbreak Hotel.’ I was pretty impressed that the guitar player was able to get the solo down (you can even hear the bass following along) and all in all it’s a pretty entertaining cover.
While the music itself doesn’t really appeal to me, this is a really amazing concept for a music video. The music sounds like a studio-fabricated attempt at imitating some 80s pop rock (maybe Cheap Trick or the Cars?) The entire concept of the video with the treadmills is really interesting though, and the band must have put some serious work and rehearsal into coordinating it. I also imagine lots of fuck-ups and bruises were also involved.
King Crimson is a classic English progressive rock band that gained momentum in the late 60s and early 70s, with a similar sound to their contemporaries Pink Floyd. It’s a wonder that King Crimson did not experience the same kind of mainstream success as Pink Floyd and I attribute it to a couple of different possibilities:
-The mid 70’s, after Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ came out was really the big boom for progressive rock; King Crimson was broken up in between 1972 and 1981 so they could not capitalize on this period when their style of music became very popular.
-King Crimson’s music is a lot more expiremental and complex than Pink Floyd’s; this makes them less accessible.
Whatever the reasons may be, I think King Crimson are often overlooked and are, in my opinion, one of the most interesting rock bands of all time. They are extremely prolific, with 13 studio albums and literally dozens of live albums released over the years. They are probably most well-known for their live performances; they are a very performance-oriented band and never play a song the same way twice.
This live video, shot in Belgium in 1972, shows their talent for improvisation. Performing the instrumental ‘Lark’s Tongues in Aspic pt. 1′ which would later be released on their 1973 album ‘Lark’s Tonges in Aspic’, this line-up features guitar legend Robert Fripp, John Wetton on bass, David Cross on violin, Jamie Muir on percussion and Bill Bruford, quite possibly the best rock drummer of all time. I think having two percussionists definitely adds a lot of depth to this performance.
Although They Might Be Giants only achieved mainstream success with their 1990 album ‘Flood’ with songs like ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’ and ‘Particle Man’, they have actually been around since the mid-80s and continue to make records today. ‘Don’t Let’s Start’ is from their first self-titled record as a two-piece, comprised of John Flansburgh and John Linnell.
I like this video a lot, I think it really shows the strange and goofy sense of humor and approach to music that has made this duo a cult legend. In more recent years they have hit commercial success again making children’s music.
Pink Floyd did not become world famous as a progressive rock band until 1974’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, but they were experimenting with new sounds long before then, and ‘One of These Days’ from the 1971 album ‘Meddle’ is a great example.
The focus of the video, and arguable the focus of the song, is Nick Mason’s drumming. The track is an instrumental, with the only vocals being a modified recording of Nick Mason stating ‘One of These days I’m Going to Chop You Into Little Pieces.’
David Gilmour and Roger Waters both played the bass on this song and Richard Wright’s keyboards really create a unique atmosphere of sound.
Weird Al Yankovic is a name I think most of us have heard but tend to forget until every few years he releases another album of comedy songs and then we all say, ‘yeah, I remember that guy.’ Amazingly, unlike most comedy musicians, he is still prolific and popular almost 30 years after he mad a name for himself parodying the Knack’s ‘My Sharona’ with ‘My Bologna’ and Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ with ‘Another One Rides the Bus.’
He seems to still have a firm grasp on pop culture and know how to parody it. Here he is parodying R. Kelly’s ‘Trapped in the Closet’ with ‘Trapped in the Drive-Thru’ and at 11 minutes it is almost as epic as the original. This was taken from his latest album, ‘Straight Outta Lynwood.’
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