Classic
Some things need to be left alone. I was recently sitting in a local restaurant, trendy, sutle colors with a soft background music which for this very reason instantly peeked my curiosity, but immediately afterward made me wish I was somewhere over the rainbow. I threw up in my mouth just a little bit. I'm sure you have been there before. Allow me to explain.
A much overplayed song from the 80's graced the speakers of the busy lunchtime restaurant, "Rock On" by Michael Damien...but this was not Damien's version. It was some horrible remake that hurt my ears and was garnishing flavor from my salad. Little did I know, that the version I heard was in fact the original "Rock On" sung by David Essex and was not the song I heard popularized by the hit movie "Dream a Little Dream" starring the Two Corey's - Corey Haim and Corey Feldman. Ironically enough, the moment was saved by Heuey Lewis and the NEWS.
It helped me then realize how young people can foolishly choose things like Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal" over the original and much beloved from 1987 by Michael Jackson. I myself am not a fan of most remakes, and of course if you read the above paragraph I have just told you that I am a hypocrite. Don't get me wrong here, it is not that I boast in that in any way. How was I to know that just a decade earlier David Essex had performed the original version and here I am jammin' to an awesome remake which, at the time was soaring through the charts.
I recall just a few years back when Hollywood started hitting the remake scene hard in rebooting the classics from the 1980's like "The Karate Kid" (1984 - Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita), "Footloose" (1984 - Kevin Bacon, John Lithgow), and "Arthur" (1981 - Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli). I couldn't help, but think to myself, "What a monstrosity? How dare they go after the classics!" If you keep up with movies to a certain degree than you are already familiar with the "rumors" surfacing not too long ago about Hollywood stripping themselves of any dignity by attempting, though failing to find funding, to remake heavy hitters and all-time favorites like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "The Breakfast Club" and a few others.
The reality is that there is nothing new under the sun and when it comes to movies and music, the version from Michael Damien is what I knew, the one with which I grew up, and have never until this moment heard the original. I became so accustomed to that tune from the 80's that this song from the 70's eluded me in tone and form, but when it comes to today's teenager, the version which they originally heard just a few years back, though a remake, may in fact be the only one to which they are privy, and thus for them it IS the original, because it is all they have known, which means simply that it is up to us Levi's 501-wearing, plain white t-shirt donning, seasoned adults who have sat for hours in a dim lit room, kicked back in a leather chair listening to vinyl with a rocks glass nearby while incense swirls in the air overhead to introduce them to talented 1st's like Crowded House, Johnny Cash, and Tears for Fears, but that is just my humble opinion.