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Running Up That Hill (Placebo)
Written by Rachel Baker | Wednesday, April 2, 2008 |
Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill arguably has the most beautiful and lustful lyrics of any song of the last 30 years. It is a classic and it’s impossible for any good band to go wrong when covering this song. This is witnessed in Within Temptation’s version in which Sharon den Adel does her best Kate Bush impression to great effect.
However, den Adel loses all the illicit lust and sexuality conveyed by Molko and Bush and it’s really just a showcase of her impressive vocal range with a gorgeous video.
An excellent cover version, needs to be a journey, identifying how it has developed from the original. Brian Molko is responsible for some of the best, most perceptive and intelligent lyrics in music. It is interesting that he has covered such a pure song about female desire and made it into a lustful and desperate plea of eroticism by using exactly the same lyrics.
Bush’s original encompasses the whole performance, it is full of musicality as she sings every note in a heartfelt manner. Her video is a body to body balletic expression of attraction.
Molko doesn’t so much sing the lyrics, but annunciate them staccato and at times makes them sound like a threat. He then breaks down half way through with a begging crescendo: “If only I could make a deal with god, I’d get him to swap our places.” He fills that line with more angst and passion than Bush ever manages.
Male vocals give this song more impact and sincerity. The gendered versions emphasise the differences between men and women’s desire for lust. Molko is loved for his ambiguous sexuality and androgynous looks and Placebo are known for their seedy sound which oozes sex. Placebo bring this song to life in a way that Bush didn‘t manage.
When Placebo play this song live, they leave the stage before the encore with the intro to this song playing, like teasing foreplay! They then end the song with the most cacophonous climax of feedback and distortion.
The build up of Placebo’s version is so climactic you need a post coital cigarette afterwards to come down from that intense, melancholic yet euphoric high. It is 7 minutes and 43 seconds of pure, self indulgent, eroticism, sexuality, desire, lust and bliss!
Which version is best? You decide.
Placebo:
Kate Bush:
Within Temptation:
4 Responses to “Running Up That Hill (Placebo)”
I completey and utterly disagree with your review.
I adore Kate Bush and have always found the original filled with longing, desire & PASSION. Kate pleads in this song and no one has ever come close to the power and the passion and the pathos of the original. I love Placebo’s version for the moodiness and the restraint but I must must must stress that the original has been stripped of all its power and passion. Placebo’s version is a studied moody remake of an 80’s classic that is sung by someone who appears not to understand the intensity of the lyrics.
Adrian
Thank you for that idiotic, generalizion of a “review.” Keep it up, and you’ll reduce the Web to a junk heap before you know it.
You obviously have a “thing” for “Molko” and in your narrow world view, there is only “One Way” to sing a word in order to convey emotion. You need to grow up, have some real world experiences, THEN blather on about what you think before wasting space on the ‘Net–or is that your intention?
Adrian: Thank you, I appreciate your comments. I too love the Kate Bush version, which is why I have described it as a classic.
Anna: What a pleasant person you must be to write such offensive comments about an internet review. You seem like a very angry person, I’d hate to see how upset you get about something that actually matters!
I’d also like to read your review of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ as you don’t seem to have mentioned it all in your comment. I take it must be one of your favourite songs for you to get so irate!
I suggest that you should take your own good advice and “grow up and have some real world experiences” before it’s too late. Perhaps then you wouldn’t get so upset about a music review!!!
Personally I prefer the Placebo version, but then I’m a big Placebo fan. I don’t see it as something worth getting angry about either way however.
The Placebo video above shows a pretty sub par performance of the song I feel, to see what they can really do with it I recommend people view this version of the song:
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Adrian Says: April 3rd, 2008at 11:07 pm