Weekend Listomania (Special Vive Le Roi Audio/Video Edition)

Well, it's Friday and you know what that means. Yes, my Oriental hand held device technician Fah Lo Suee and I will be heading off with Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell [Insane Person-DE] for a tour of the Human/Mouse Brain Transplant project now underway at the super-secret laboratories of Sargento Foods Inc.

That being the case, posting will necessarily be slow for the next days, so here's a fun project to help you wile away the hours in our absence:

Best (or Worst) Elvis Presley Cover or Obviously El-Inspired Pop/Rock/Soul Song!!!

Self-explanatory, I think, and no arbitrary rules whatsoever, you're welcome very much. That last to be said in an Elvis voice, of course.

And my totally top of my head Top Six is:

6. Val Kilmer -- How Silly Can You Get/Spend This Night With Me



"Spend This Night" (great as it is) is an Elvis parody, of course, but "How Silly" -- which was written by Phil Pickett, the guy who co-authored "Karma Chameleon" -- is a terrific song that works just fine as a straight ahead pop rocker; if somebody like, say, Dave Edmunds had done it, I suspect it could have been a legit hit.

5. Nanci Griffith -- Wooden Heart




From the 1991 N.M.E. benefit compilation album The Last Temptation of Elvis. The original of this is one of Presley's most horrific movie songs, but when I heard Griffith's cover back in the day, I thought she managed to make something unexpectedly touching out of it. Listening to it again for the first time in ages, however, her trademark little girl vocal stylings now seem kind of annoying. Whether that says something about me or her, however, I wouldn't venture to guess.

4. Terry Stafford -- Suspicion



Still the greatest Elvis record Elvis never made. Kind of out-Els El in the neurotic paranoia department, in fact.

3. The Jeff Beck Group -- All Shook Up



I love this version, although the heavyosity of it does kind of miss the point of the original. In any case, Beck's guitars are just ridiculously cool.

2. John Cale -- Heartbreak Hotel



...in a tie with...

Stan Freberg -- Heartbreak Hotel



Both of the above speak for themselves, as it were. Although Cale's may actually be funnier, in a perverse sort of way.

And the Numero Uno if-you're-looking-for-unpleasantness-you've-come-to-the-correct-address record of them all simply HAS to be....

1. Viv Stanshall -- There's No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car




Another track from Last Temptation, and obviously the song Stanshall was born to sing. "I eat Big Macs till I climax...." Wow.

Alrighty then -- what would your choices be?

[Shameless Blogwhore: My parallel Cinema Listomania -- theme: best or worst film adaptations of serious, well-regarded contemporary novels -- is now up over at Box Office. Leave a comment if you have a spare moment -- it would help me shnorr a bonus check from management so as to finance my upcoming trip to DaytonOhio, France.]