PURPLE PAIN.

September 6, 2018 11:38 AM

“When Doves Cry” (Minneapolis, MN - September 4, 2018) by Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo [YouTube] Arguably the world's worst Prince cover.
posted by Fizz (69 comments total)

Spinal Crap.
posted by Optamystic at 11:41 AM on September 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

“Metallica was so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”
posted by Fizz at 11:44 AM on September 6, 2018 [23 favorites]

If they were, like, jamming this in the green room or at rehearsal or something, sure. But it takes dirty big balls to play it in front of a stadium audience.
posted by skullhead at 11:45 AM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

palate cleanser
posted by thelonius at 11:46 AM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

*makes Cindy Lou Who face at Fizz*

Why?
posted by duffell at 11:46 AM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

I lasted eight seconds into the singing before I closed the tab.

Can anyone beat that?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:47 AM on September 6, 2018

Semisonic covering "Take Me With U" at First Ave is probably my favorite Prince cover since he left us. There's something about that stage that makes any Prince cover work.
posted by nathan_teske at 11:48 AM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

*clicks link*

*thinks "why did I click a link billed as 'Arguably the world's worst Prince cover.'?"*

*decides the tab is already open so what the hell*

*realizes oh that the hell and closes tab*
posted by ckape at 11:50 AM on September 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

*makes Cindy Lou Who face at Fizz*

Why?

I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time to see you laughing
posted by Fizz at 11:50 AM on September 6, 2018 [18 favorites]

the world's worst Prince cover

Seems legit.
posted by chavenet at 11:50 AM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Spinal Crap.
posted by Optamystic

The reviews are in.
posted by duffell at 11:50 AM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I don't usually go for such hyperbole but in this case it's accurate.
posted by me3dia at 11:52 AM on September 6, 2018

For those who are unable to hold out for the entire cover, there's this moment in the middle (1:25) where they try to get the audience to sing the lyrics and you can hear and feel the angry rage of the crowd as they only manage to get about a handful of the audience to actually fill in those gaps with the lyrics. It's deafening.
posted by Fizz at 11:55 AM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

At least we finally know why the doves were crying.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:56 AM on September 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

They needed lyric sheets for one of their "favorite" songs? OK...

And this was dreadful.
posted by droplet at 11:57 AM on September 6, 2018

"this tastes terrible. here, try it."
posted by rhizome at 11:59 AM on September 6, 2018 [16 favorites]

Part of the issue with covering this song is that what made it interesting in the first place was the atmospheric mix. As a musical composition, it has practically zero in terms of melody and not much in terms of harmony. There's not a lot of space to make this song interesting that Prince didn't already do.
posted by slkinsey at 12:00 PM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Cannot watch because the only acceptable cover of this particular song is ani difranco, acoustic onstage with Andy Stochansky, at my college in I think 1993. Maybe '94.
posted by wellred at 12:03 PM on September 6, 2018

Another palette cleanser.
posted by Catblack at 12:05 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

As a musical composition, it has practically zero in terms of melody and not much in terms of harmony. There's not a lot of space to make this song interesting that Prince didn't already do.

your ears are very different from mine ...

Be Good Tanyas
Patti Smith

It's also, I think, one of the purple one's finest lyrics -- made one of my toughest, most macho male friends cry when we caught Prince live in 1988. Brought up stuff about his parents' divorce when he was little kid that he'd long ago stashed away somewhere deep, and suddenly here it all was gushing out.
posted by philip-random at 12:08 PM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

Not that I needed another reason to laugh at Metallica, but thanks!
posted by dobbs at 12:12 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh god, why.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 12:15 PM on September 6, 2018

If they were, like, jamming this in the green room or at rehearsal or something, sure.
I once say Eric Bachmann do "When You Were Mine" on the banjo in some stranger's living room. It was very pleasant.
posted by mcdoublewide at 12:18 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'll always have a place in my heart for Metallica. Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning are masterpieces. But that was a fucking crime against humanity.
posted by gwint at 12:19 PM on September 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

It's not that Prince covers aren't a thing. Hell, my wee tiny inconsequential band covers Nothing Compares 2U. But When Doves Cry is ... *sigh*
posted by wellred at 12:20 PM on September 6, 2018

If they were, like, jamming this in the green room or at rehearsal or something, sure. But it takes dirty big balls to play it in front of a stadium audience.
posted by skullhead

....especially in Minneapolis, which often feels like it's on its way to becoming the necropolis of Prince.

Funny thing! Not long before this turd was dropped, I was driving through downtown Minneapolis to work. I usually take the bus or bike, but we just adopted a special-needs puppy and I had to drive him to dog day care. Downtown Mpls is a traffic mess on a good day, but this particular day everything was fucked up for several blocks around Target Center by a small army of semis and tour busses trying to pull into the loading zones of the arena. "Whatever gang of fucking assholes thought this was the time to load in, I'm going to hate forever," I thought. Then I got to work, looked it up, and saw that it was Metallica. "Fuck," I thought. "I already hate Metallica."
posted by the phlegmatic king at 12:31 PM on September 6, 2018 [15 favorites]

This seems like a good way to get Prince's ghost to haunt you forever. Like, he just floats around your house, making your milk spoil and your bread moldy as soon as you bring them home from the supermarket.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:31 PM on September 6, 2018 [6 favorites]

I bet these girls can do a damn fine Prince cover.

Seriously, why do we even need Metallica anymore? What purpose do they serve?
posted by Naberius at 12:34 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

NOBODY ASKED FOR THIS
posted by pxe2000 at 12:37 PM on September 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Prince cover-baaad!
posted by TedW at 12:37 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning are masterpieces.

I fully agree, and with that as context, offer the following snarky comment:

The only way they could have made this cover worse would have been to add Lars Ulrich's drumming.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:38 PM on September 6, 2018 [11 favorites]

Semisonic covering "Take Me With U" at First Ave is probably my favorite Prince cover since he left us. There's something about that stage that makes any Prince cover work.

Semisonic are hometown boys, of course, having emerged from Minneapolis's other greatest band, Trip Shakespeare. Here's John Munson (of both bands) speaking at McNally Smith College of Music's 2016 Commencement, where he was due to deliver parting wisdom to a group of fresh-faced young composers/musicians, but devotes much of the time instead to talking about Prince.
posted by mykescipark at 12:41 PM on September 6, 2018

Stereogum: "This is What it Sounds Like When Lugs Try"
posted by vverse23 at 12:46 PM on September 6, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm now convinced that from 0:08 to 0:15 Trujillo is trying to playing "Baba O'Reilly" while Hammett is kicking off "Sin City," and then "When Doves Cry" just sorta happened.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:48 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

I once say Eric Bachmann do "When You Were Mine" yt on the banjo in some stranger's living room. It was very pleasant.

From his wonderful EP of covers, Reservoir Songs.
posted by dobbs at 12:48 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

> mandolin conspiracy:
"I'm now convinced that from 0:08 to 0:15 Trujillo is trying to playing "Baba O'Reilly" while Hammett is kicking off "Sin City," and then "When Doves Cry" just sorta happened."

In there somewhere is that orchestra stab theme from The Wide World of Sports or Blazing Saddles or something.
posted by rhizome at 12:53 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

In there somewhere is that orchestra stab theme from The Wide World of Sports or Blazing Saddles or something.

It's a rich musical tapestry that they're weaving.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:55 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm dying figuring out what song I'm thinking of because it's an almost-exact match.
posted by rhizome at 12:58 PM on September 6, 2018

Questlove is gonna be furious. Nobody tell him about this.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:58 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

In there somewhere is that orchestra stab theme from The Wide World of Sports or Blazing Saddles or something.

What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?
posted by the phlegmatic king at 1:02 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

I consider myself innocent of hyperbole when I say "dafuq".
posted by JohnFromGR at 1:14 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh man, I could literally see their Guitar Hero meter go all the way into red towards the end.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:18 PM on September 6, 2018 [9 favorites]

If this is an ok place to dump ok covers (whilst also having RTFA) - my personal <3 is ween's 1994 purple rain.
posted by Ennis Tennyone at 1:32 PM on September 6, 2018

"Can world-famous musicians take a song with no bass or guitar part, add a bass and guitar part, omit the original killer guitar intro, and improve it?"

"no"
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:08 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Found it! Magnificent Seven Theme
posted by rhizome at 2:12 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

no bass or guitar part

the way Prince looked at it, there was a bass part; just not played on bass guitar:

'When Doves Cry’ does have bass in it—the bass is in the kick drum. It’s the same with ‘Kiss’ [Parade]: The bass is in the tone of the reverb on the kick. Bass is a lot more than that instrument over there. Bass to me means B-A-S-E. B-A-S-S is a fish.”
posted by thelonius at 2:29 PM on September 6, 2018 [10 favorites]

I'm not a Metallica fan by any stretch (just not my personal cuppa), but I have enough friends who are fans to be able to appreciate what they do. I did not click this link actually expecting it to be the very worst Prince cover I've ever heard (because I have listened to many poor attempts)... but sure enough, here it is, just as advertised.

Not sure what they were thinking - this is beneath their talent. It sounds like one of those "Creed SHREDS" videos that were making the rounds on YouTube a couple years back, where people were dubbing really bad instrument tracks over live band footage for a laugh.

I can't for the life of me remember who did it, but years back I heard a cover of When Doves Cry that I thought was sublime - it had a bluesy/country sound, and I'm pretty sure it was just two acoustic guitars and a singer. That version could've been a template for success with this. Or, they should've gone full-band, no-fucks, no-irony, given it their all, and filled in the Grand-Canyon-sized gaps in the sound of guitar/bass interplay here.
posted by kryptondog at 2:47 PM on September 6, 2018

Kirk Hammett's tone sounds like cat piss, why does he allow himself to sound like that
posted by The Horse You Rode In On at 3:03 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

As a palate cleanser, here's a much more respectful Metal cover of Purple Rain on Two Minutes to Late Night featuring Baroness and Mutoid Man.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:19 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Finally listened to this (dear GOD, somehow worse than I imagined), and I looked up at the browser tab for what I thought was this thread, titled "This is treason." (which is actually the politics megathread)

Anyway. This is treason.
posted by duffell at 3:42 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

The only good thing about this is the post title.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 4:21 PM on September 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

> Not sure what they were thinking - this is beneath their talent. It sounds like one of those "Creed SHREDS" videos that were making the rounds on YouTube a couple years back, where people were dubbing really bad instrument tracks over live band footage for a laugh.

I'm certainly laughing at it like is!
I can't even make it through the damn thing, I just keep skipping to different parts and I can't at all understand. This is the same band that inspired "Metallica Drummer" and it sounds worse than their roadies doing a sound check.

I don't even think its a sacred or uncoverable song. I have a fond memory of a real upbeat kid playing it in the U-District in seattle outside tower records on a rainy afternoon, that's just kinda stuck in my head for being a funny upbeat version.

But, this is like making nachos with ketchup.
posted by lkc at 4:55 PM on September 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

I had to listen to Whiskey in the Jar as a palate-cleanser.
posted by Lexica at 5:04 PM on September 6, 2018

Like, you know if you can't get a crowd in Minneapolis excited about a Prince cover, you're doing something really, really wrong.

I went to college in the Twin Cities in the late 90s, when the general musical vibe of a small liberal arts college leaned much more towards backpack rap and indie rock than any kind of pop music, and yet I don't believe I went to a single party in college where Prince was not played. And that includes parties that consisted of people sitting around stoned in a dorm room.
posted by lunasol at 5:23 PM on September 6, 2018

Oh no. This is bad. Real bad. God, can you imagine being in the audience for this?

However, that Ween cover that Ennis Tennyone linked above is good.
posted by mhum at 6:10 PM on September 6, 2018

In the interest of peace and harmony, I'm going to assume that by "other," you mean in addition to several others? Because that cover was really truly awful, but if the thread also contains a put-down of the 'Mats and Hüsker Dü (among others) (maybe Hüsker Dü somehow doesn't count b/c Saint Paul?), I just can't even

Any use of the word "other" is said with a deep wink and no disturbance of the vaunted MPLS/St. Paul musical canon is otherwise seriously implied. Carry on.
posted by mykescipark at 6:17 PM on September 6, 2018

This is especially funny to me because the best Prince cover I've ever heard (well, OK, 2nd to Sinéad) was this very song done by some no-name guy who looked like The Penguin at a Sunday afternoon open mic jam a few summers back. Dude went up with an acoustic guitar and started doing a mariachi style version of it. Part-way through an audience member got inspired to jump onstage and start playing along on the house piano. Then a group of guys who had already played opened up a suitcase and started passing around various percussion instruments. And it ended with the entire bar singing in unison. Fucking glorious.
posted by mannequito at 6:22 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

🎵 This is what it sounds like 🎵 when Kirk and Rob huff model airplane glue 🎵
posted by duffell at 6:40 PM on September 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Hopefully not too much of a derail, but my favorite awful cover (until this one just posted) has always been Dexy's Midnight Runners guy's cover of "Thunder Road," with its inexplicable lyrics changes.
posted by HeroZero at 7:37 PM on September 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oh, right, you mean the Springsteen Thunder Road.

At first, I honestly thought you meant the Robert Mitchum one.

Yeah, that makes a little more sense.
posted by Naberius at 8:09 PM on September 6, 2018

I'm surprised no one has linked the actual Official Video of "When Doves Cry".
posted by lkc at 12:59 AM on September 7, 2018

I admit it, I wasn't ready for the song when that video aired. Blew my mind.

---

A sludgy metal cover of "When Doves Cry", with Cookie Monster vocals, is a thing that could be done and even be OK. But Metallica took Half Measures here and it's just bad all the way through.
posted by thelonius at 3:30 AM on September 7, 2018

Another palate cleanser.

Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others perform "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the 2004 Hall of Fame Inductions
posted by mikelieman at 4:31 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

In 1990, a classmate of mine handed me a tape of his then-unsigned and unknown band jamming. It included a cover of When Doves Cry. Just looked, and someone's put it on Youtube. (A Madonna cover follows it.)
posted by dobbs at 5:59 AM on September 7, 2018 [3 favorites]

I've long wondered if a performance of a song can be worse than a Nickelback performance of a song and now I wonder no more.
posted by juiceCake at 7:11 AM on September 7, 2018

Yeah, this was legit so bad that it merits replacing "Nickelback" with "Metallica" as shorthand for the shittiest of shitty music.
posted by duffell at 9:34 AM on September 7, 2018

No. Absolutely not.


Like, you know if you can't get a crowd in Minneapolis excited about a Prince cover, you're doing something really, really wrong.

This. During his set at the Turf Club (RIP) last year, Ted Leo sang two lines of Purple Rain and his band started in as if they were going to roll with it. Those two lines were perfect and beautiful and the crowd lost its MIND or at least I remember it that way because I fully lost mine, and then he laughed at himself and said "no no, I'm not going to sully this," and stopped. I understand and respect his decision but I would have allowed it.
posted by clavicle at 10:16 AM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]

By Turf Club I mean Triple Rock but you get the idea
posted by clavicle at 10:24 AM on September 7, 2018

*sees title*

Okay, this is a public performance by pros to a real venue. Can't be that bad.

*clicks link*

What the hell, guys?
posted by Enturbulated at 7:55 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]