It's All Coming Back To Me Now - Boys And Girls And Girls And Boys....

Despite the nature of this picture, the following is not about toilets. Except maybe the Hilary Duff bit. Possibly. What?



Girls Who Are Boys Who Like Boys To Be Girls Who Do Boys Like They're Girls Who Do Girls Like They're Boys 

by Jo Michelmore

I had a long lunch with three fabulous people on Sunday (Hi Matty! Hi Cassie! Hi Jimmy! Why does everyone's name end in 'eeeee'? Oh I'm so uncool right now) and, through the natural course of conversation, two of those people burst into an En Vogue song. Don't look at me funny, I know, like, who's even thought of En Vogue in the last twenty years? Oh, what? You don't burst into song at lunch? You haven't lunched with me...and therefore you haven't lived. I'm sorry. Anyway, there they were, two incredibly attractive guys harmonising better than four attractive women in sequinned dresses (ok, this could be an exaggeration, but I'd only had one cider so my observations were not enhanced, those boys were good!), they even had some nice head shaking and finger pointing thrown in. It got me thinking; whatever happened to En Vogue? I only thought about that for a second, before the chorus kicked in....

 

...and I lost track of any thoughts about where those girls are now (I'm sure you know how to use google if you care to find out, I can't be bothered). The thought that did stick with me was that of songs that were originally sung by girls then covered by boys, or songs that were originally sung by boys and covered by girls and vice versa and so on and so forth....

Like Travis, another band no one has thought of since the 90's (thankfully). They had that one good song, which was Britney's, not their own. Anyone know of anything else they did? Use that google thing again and let me know. Travis disappointingly didn't have the balls to sing the 'boy' bit in "boy you got me blinded", which proved how un-manly they actually were and should be singing girl songs anyway...

Britney did her own male/female vocal swap in 2002, with her version of 'I Love Rock N Roll', which is probably something she didn't really mean, unless she was referring to the drugs bit in the 'sex, drugs and rock n roll' concept. She probably likes the sex too, but who am I to say? She didn't have the balls to sing the original lyrics either, which were sung by a boy (no, not Joan Jett, even hers was a cover, it was by some other guy....google it). The lyrics were originally about a girl standing by a record machine. What's a record machine? Anyway, it's probably best Britney didn't have the balls, as Britney's actually a girl, even though she has looked like a guy every now and then....

 

Hilary Duff did her bit for the girl pop singers doing terrible covers of male vocal songs in 2004, when she did her version of 'My Generation', which tends to make fans of The Who spontaneously vomit at the first notes. The most offensive part of this one is not that she doesn't have the balls to sing any boy/girl lines, but the most offensive part is, well, in the spirit of this weeks K-Tizzle Sizzle, here's a truth bomb....Hilary's attempt at this song sucks.Yep.

 

Then, the example of someone who got it right. Strangely, it's Tori Amos, in 1992, before she got super plastic and super weird and she made up for the horror that was Hilary long before Hilary. It's Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and Tori had the balls to sing it as it was written. I'm going to be honest, I kinda love this version. There's something hot about the "with the lights out, it's less dangerous" when Tori sings it. 

 

Enough of the girls. Let's talk about my faves. Boys singing songs by girls. Kylie's 'Can't Get You Outta My Head' is such an awesome pop song and then the impressively and eternally strange Flaming Lips got their hands on it and this happened in 2003...and yes, Wayne Coyne sings it like it was written. No mincing of boys and girls lyrics. Good work Mr Coyne. (This version is surpassed only by two other boys I'm lucky enough to know and who I may have mentioned before, who sing this incredibly well at karaoke. I may or may not provide backing vocals. You've never done karaoke with me? I'm sorry. You haven't lived.)

I'm going to finish with my absolute favourite boy singing a song by a girl, it's The White Stripes in 2000 where Jack White, of course, won me over by having the balls to sing this one exactly as it was meant to be sung....

 

Oh Jack, oh sigh.