Multiple Sh*tty Metal Covers of Adele’s “Skyfall”
I don’t mind admitting that I really dig Adele, a pop star who can actually sing and does not appear to have an eating disorder. She’s probably gonna win an Oscar this weekend for co-writing and performing “Skyfall,” the theme song from the James Bond movie of the same name, and while I place the significance of the Oscars below the decision regarding which toilet paper brand to purchase, I’m all for her getting kudos for this song. Because it fucking rules. It’s one of the only good things about this stupid overrated movie.*
Presumably because Skyfall made a metric fuckton of cash, metal bands seem to be covering this song in record numbers. The movie and song haven’t even been out four full months yet, and there are already three metal versions of this song. And while it is entirely possible that there is a great metal cover of “Skyfall” to be recorded, none of these are it.
The most famous band to tackle the tune so far is Within Temptation, whose first mistake was turning it into a polka song.
Then there’s this version by an Israeli band, Walkways. They made a fairly hilarious video for the song (I didn’t even know mullets were a thing in Israel!), but I don’t think anyone would complain if none of these men never made music again. It’s basically the shitty nu-core version of this song.
http://youtu.be/HCH8zx0LSNE
Australians Divine Ascension tried their hand at it, too. This isn’t the worst version of the song I could imagine, mostly because I just listened to two bands who made those imaginings a reality.
A Perfect Day’s version is the most recent, and probably the one I like the best. Of course, the bar hasn’t been set very high, but still, credit where credit is due and all that. A Perfect Day have going for their iteration: a) unlike Within Temptation, they didn’t actually try to change the song very much (a rare instance where that was probably a good decision) and b) unlike Walkways, the singer can sing.
Do you know of any other metal versions of this song? Are they actually any good? Let me know in the comments section below. Or feel free to record one and e-mail it to me. I know at least one of you is gonna do that anyway.
*I know I’m gonna get shit about this. So even though MetalSucks is not a movie site, please allow me to explain. Spoilers follow.
Skyfall tells the thematically incoherent story of Silva (Javier Bardem), a form MI-6 agent who M sold out after he egregiously deviated from protocol — in other words, he was fired for being shitty at his job, but since his job was to be a spy, there were direct physical consequences. Needless to say, he doesn’t care that he was shitty at his job and that M’s decision was perfectly rational — he just wants revenge against M, who he seems to regard as a mother figure. He enacts this revenge by stealing a list of the identities of other embedded spies, and then gradually posting that list on YouTube, the favored mode of communication between terrorists everywhere. So, basically, he’s upset that he was betrayed as a spy, and his reaction is to betray other spies, who did nothing to him, so that he can hurt M, who, his own fate has established, is likely not super-concerned about the fate of her operatives.
Only, that’s not the end of his master plan, or ultimately even relevant to his master plan at all! He was just doing it to, uh, get M’s attention I guess? I dunno. Anyway, the end of the movie suggests that his actual goal was a murder-suicide with M. Luckily, our hero James Bond prevents this by… oh, wait. No, he doesn’t prevent this at all. Silva is killed. M is killed. Bond kindly supplied Silva with a very nice house to blow-up, I suppose. That’s about all he accomplished. One minute he has PTSD and can’t even shoot a gun without his hand shaking, and the next he’s fine. Nothing happens to actually cause this transition. He also forgives M for her betrayal, although she does nothing to redeem herself, and at no point in the story is there a moment where Bond decides that M’s decision was actually in the best interest of national security. In other words, his arc is not actually supported by the story.
So, like I was saying. Skyfall is overrated. Pretty to look at, though.
Also, this:
