The Model / He's a Whore 7" Single
Big Black
Touch and Go Records, 1987
Every few months, I get a professional cleaning of my apartment. It's like getting a new start in life and its worth the trade-off between, let's say, satellite radio. Everything looks kind of new and shiny in here. My own cleaning skills are okay when I get the time but I eventually give up and just fret about the ever creeping dust and smells that come with time. I imagine that this must be the type of horror a model lives with. When it comes to aging, I don't really worry much about it. With the possible exception of the wrinkles that appeared one day underneath my ear lobe -- and more just for the visual grotesqueness of it -- I don't spend much time in front of the mirror.
So when it came time to lighten the mood in the recording sessions for their last album together, Big Black looked through Steve's Kraftwerk collection and pulled this song out. And really, for an excruciating and relentlessly mean and ugly album as Songs About Fucking, some said this was their "fun" song. I'm not so sure if models really in the long run have fun. Despite all the "I'm OK/You're OK" blather (is it the Prozac, Bebe?) from the previous posting's subject, she (Buell) spent alot of time in therapy or whatever hippies call recovering from mental breakdowns. So maybe The Model was really the scariest song on the SaF, I dunno. All the liner notes (Eric wake up) sayabout it is , "boy, don't we look smashing in red"... anyway, they did have fun making the cover photos for this single.
The Model - Big Black
So, since it's Friday, let's have a Model Cover Party (get it?), shall we?
Ramstein's version of "The Model" (referring page)
Mannequin Depressive's version (referring page)
The Klopeks do it to the girls (referring page)
And the original:
The Model - Kraftwerk (referring page)
Note: The always on-target Something I Learned has been listening to Big Black singles recently, too.
Updated to fix a typo and do a shout out to Herr Fuzzy K for the "fuzzylanche"...
4 comments:
...don't forget the late Snakefinger's cover version with The Residents on the Greener Postures album. I'll rip & send you a copy if you would like to hear it.
- Drew Miller / omnidrew@gmail.com
Jim... thanks for the link and all of the other versions, including the original. ( which I had never heard ).
We keep this up we can get together with Simon at SVC and start an all-Albini blog
Thanks Drew, never heard the Snakefinger/Residents version so I would be interested. Is it OOP or still available?
I should have noted that Songs about Fucking is still available on CD - go to froogle or amazon for it.
Eric, I'd have to think up a good name for an all-Albini log but I'm sure I'd never live up to his high level of excellence.
Nice selection of The Model covers. Curiously enough The Cardigans also recorded it as Das Model.
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