I am listening to Smooth Fm (formerly known as Jazz Fm) online. The song playing right now is "California dreaming" but not the version by the mamas and the papas (if thats not a cool name then what is). I do not know which version came first but this guys version sucks ass big time. No disrespect to the dude as an artist but he is trying to do a soul/funky rendition of the song and it just doesnt go. Maybe i have heard the other version too many times but it just doesnt seem to go but hey, who am i to stop the dude singing his stuff.

On the subject of remakes or whatever one chooses to call them, i find that the best option is just to leave the damn original alone. People keep trying to do their own version of a classic and 9.5 times out of 10, they end up looking very silly. It is a classic because it kicks butt on a whole new level, is not meant to be copied and should only be sung by the original artist.

One of the remakes that i really do not like is "eternal flame" by Atomic Kitten - A british pop group. The version by the bangles kicks ass as far as i am concerned. Sure the video looks silly now but it was the 80s and besides most music videos now look silly and as such will look even worse 10 years from now. I digress. The Atomic Kitten remake was awful, i do have a soft spot for them and stuff but what the hell were they thinking. They should have punched whoever suggested that to them.

Another is "freak like me" by the sugababes. Now sugababes i dont mind even though only one of the original trio remains, they were different to other pop groups when they came on the scene a few years back. Their remake of freak like me however was some pop/rock kind of thingy - which as someone who very very clearly remembers adina howard's original - and was nothing short of a complete annihilation of the original. Why, why, why did they have to do it. I was listening to Adina's version a few days ago and that shit still kicks so much ass even a decade later. Brought back memories from back in the day and stuff.

The moral of the story is very simple. If you are an artist, stay the fuck away from covers, remakes or whatever you may wish to call them. Do your own thing and if it sucks at least you'll get credit for being original as opposed to being more dissed cos you murdered a classic.