OFF: Metallica and covers, including _Astronomy_

[Warrick Bell]

OK.  Having listened to the snippet of _Astronomy_ available on the
cdnow.com website, I think I'm gonna pass that one up.  Granted, RealAudio
doesn't do most things justice on a machine as slow as mine but still,
Hetfield sounds like John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants.  Not that
there's anything wrong with TMBG if they're not fronting a "metal" band
and trying to ruin one of my favourite songs.
Perusing the other cover tracks that I've never heard before, I find Black
Sabbath sounding like waaaay more like a pop group than they really
should, and an abominable version of a Nick Cave song.  You can't DO Nick
Cave without a piano!  Don't they know this???
I'm still kinda interested in hearing the _Astronomy_ track in full from
off an actual disc, but until that happens I'm staying away from it.
It'll be interestesting to see how sales of BOC albums change (if they do
at all) as a result of this re-exposure by a band that's currently more
commonly-known than BOC, at least outside of the U.S..

Warrick Bell

<wbell at techno.king.net>
http://techno.king.net/~wbell/
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/westweb/