Mark Ronson - 'Just'
My Mark Ronson backlash really kicked off when he introduced this track on the radio as ‘my song’. Now, without needing to turn to postmodern theories on the authenticity of the original, and the mediated/re-digested nature of every piece of art that is produced in our little self-consuming world, I happen to believe that this is NOT his song.
We all know the main rule of the cover version – include an element of surprise (and no, doing a soulful acoustic version of an upbeat pop song doesn’t count, you legions of indie bands).
You could say that there is an element of surprise here in the fact that someone thinks it acceptable to take someone ELSE’S song (in this case Radiohead’s), activate the horn-section function on their keyboard, loop it over, get someone to do a passable impression of the original’s lead singer, and send over to record company with attached note: "This will have to do, Mark x"
Under Ronson’s rule, what do you have to do to make a song yours? Hum it in the shower with a mildly altered timbre? Buy the single, scrub out the artist’s name and ink yours over instead? Change YOUR name to Radiohead and then tell everyone that you’re responsible for their immense body of work, but have been too modest to admit it before?
I want to murder this record. It’s so close to the original that it’s not even that bad, but I can’t bear to listen to it.
Am I on my own in this?
Download: Out now
CD Released: February 18th
(Nickie Latham)
Listen to our interview with the man himself, right here..
Comments
Hi
First off I agree with the whole what is a cover version arguement, v true. However I really like this song (as am a rather avid ronson fan) its upbeat catchy etc and made me check out the original. I like radiohead but am not a major dedicated fan so when I heard that this was a cover of one of theirs I had a listen and loved it.
Also I love chartblog I always check it out, but this is the first time I have postedx
[Aw... Hello there, Lucy. Welcome to The ChartBlog Commentiverse! Keep 'em coming too. We're having DIALOGUE here. - Fraser]
this review is WELL harsh nicky...its not THAT bad
i think maybe 3 stars is a more non-controversial calm approach to this eh?
Absolutely agree!
There's no point doing a cover if you haven't changed anything about the song, or it'll just be copying someone else's stuff and "scrub out the artist’s name and ink yours over instead"
So I'm not going to bother buying/downloading/listening to this version again, but am going off to get Radiohead's version which is more original (heck it was the first version wasn't it) and better than any cover with added blasted horns.
xx
Ps. Chartblog=fab :)
In *that* case...
I do a mean version of this so it's *my* song *too*.
its coz your a radiohead fan isnt it?
IMHO, it's not JUST that he covered "Just" and called it "HIS song", it's not even one of the better Radiohead tunes out there (I was not abig fan of the Bends...sorry).
Couldn't he have JUST tried to remake "Paranoid Android" and resort to having, at the very least, a noble failure. Dude just won a Grammy. Surely he could have set his Radiohead cover sights a little higher. :p