Version

For her birthday, I bought my "little" (23 year old) sister Mark Ronson's debut CD VERSION. Who the hell is Mark Ronson? Ronson is a famous British DJ (the sort that spin records...not the kind that are on the radio) who has been working as a producer for a while now. You'd think that Ronson's first "solo record" would have the guy stepping out of the shadows and into the limelight...but instead nearly all the songs feature huge/mega-famous artists. It was for this reason that I picked it up for my sis.

Here's a breakdown of who is on this record: Lily Allen, Daniel Merriweather, Kasabian, Robbie Williams, Amy Winehouse, Tigger, Santo Gold, Kenna, The Daptone Horns, Paul Smith (of Maximo Park), and Phantom Planet. The album consists of these artists (along with Ronson's "flair" which I'll get to in a moment) performing covers. Basically, VERSION is a glorified covers album...with a twist. Rather than have this great collection of current pop stars cover older or classic songs, Ronson instead opted for a different approach--newer songs by newer bands.

Lily Allen covers up-and-comers The Kaiser Chiefs on "Oh My God!" Rapper (now dead) ODB and Tiggers cover (*gasp*) Brittany Spears's "Toxic." Phantom Planet tackles Radiohead's classic "Just." All of this is crazy, and all of it works. Any album that can get me to like a Brittany Spears song is truly amazing. The reason a song like “Toxic” works so well on this album is all due to Ronson—let me explain his part in all of this madness. When I put this CD into my car’s player, I was expecting a re-mix album. You know—lame ‘club’ re-workings (too much bass, less vocals, the song’s hook repeated 500 times in a row). VERSION is not, let me stress…NOT A RE-MIX ALBUM. Ronson took these classic songs and infused jazz (along with a little world beat) into them.

Prime example: “Just.” Ronson deletes all the ‘alternative rock’ vibe and replaces it with shiny big band brass. Think Gorillaz meets MOULIN ROUGE (if you haven’t seen this movie go check it out, it’s great…they re-work a bunch of classic rock songs). Fans of Amy Winehouse’s “everything-old-is-new-again” sound will appreciate VERSION. That said, it is a bit more urban/hip-hop than BACK IN BLACK (come on, ODB is on it…it has to be more street). Ronson has three instrumental tracks that are only credited to him, and they’re really good (nice bouncy jazz).

VERSION is great, but I wonder how popular it’ll be. My sister told me she “hated it” and “had to turn it off.” She’s a notorious hater of covers, so an entire album of covers probably rubbed her the wrong way. And frankly, if you like the original Ms. Spears version of “Toxic” you’ll probably hate this album. But, if you like your pop music to be a little strange (really strange) and/or you enjoy modern jazz…you’ll probably enjoy the strange ride.

Jason gives VERSION a “B+”