Illustration by Jillian Tamaki The story of how Out of Your Mouth made it into the coveted video rotation at MuchMusic in 2004 is a long and ultimately troubling one. A good deal of it is classic indie-band drudgery: group convenes, wins a few battle-of-the-band contests, kindles major-label curiosity that leads nowhere, changes name, continues to gig, grouses about lack of attention, changes name again, rekindles major-label curiosity, encounters an endless procession of label reps, despairs about dreary future. Then, after seven years of inertia, band finally finds itself in auspicious circumstances (after Zomba Records got scooped up by BMG), records and presses debut album ( ) and launches with a salvo engineered to meet the best possible reception: a cover tune.
The song the strident Calgary quartet chose to re-record was Madonna’s , a beguiling slice of sleazy neo-disco that the Material Girl rode to number 1 in most of the Western world in 2000. While Out of Your Mouth did little more than add slashing guitars and macho braying to Madonna’s inexorable sex beat, their metal treatment peaked at number 5 on the MuchMusic Countdown. “Because we’ve had some struggles getting things rolling,” lead singer Jason Darr mooted to one reporter, “we just wanted to get in the market as easily as possible.
” From a purely economic standpoint, it’s hard to fault his reasoning. Brand recognition is key to selling anything nowadays, and the song is surely one of the most identifiable club anthems in recent memory. And that’s precisely where the problem lies.
Out of Your Mouth’s retread feels more like exploitation than adulation, and points up the troubling lack of sincerity in modern cover versions.
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