The pantheon of classic cover versions is long and honourable. Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’, the Pixies covering the Jesus & Mary Chain’s ‘Head On’, Johnny Cash tackling Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’. Marvels all. Then you have the terrible, horrible likes of DJ Sammy’s mauling of Bryan Adam’s classic power ballad (stay with us here) ‘Heaven’, Britney vacantly posing her way through ‘I Love Rock And Roll’ and Westlife somehow making ‘Uptown Girl’ even worse. And then, oh yes, you have this little lot. Fans of arch musical wrongheadedness, you are in for a treat…
You’ve seen ‘Chocolate Rain’, right? Wherein idiot savant/Youtube sensation Tay Zonday posts a self-penned clip showing off his extraordinary voice (think Barry White before the castration), his bizarre performance style and his ludicrously repetitive song and achieves (at the time of blogging this) just under 28 million views. 28 MILLION! Off the back of this frankly bewildering success and mainstream coverage, our hero turned his hand to covers. Here, with his take on Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’, we have a match made in heaven. Or the ninth circle of hell, depending on your point of view. Tay’s voice manages to make Rick sound like a choirboy, and the entire video has us staring at his admittedly amusing visage and Hawaiian shirt. Best bit: 1:51, where Tay takes a break for the backing singers to come in. You can see the glee in his face as he readies himself for the “never gonna give, never gonna give!” bit. And then he gets it wrong second time round. Oh well, if we’re laughing at him, he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
