Rockabilly can be made from literally anything. This is one of the most convenient genres from the point of view of material processing, and the dance orientation of the original genre allows you to chew on any modern and not so pop hits, getting our favorite swing vibrations at the output. This is most often done by natives of Germany. Let’s recall at least the boy band The Baseballs, which was sensational in the tenth years. But today we are talking about another alien from the recent past: a new record by Sasha Schmitz, better known by his pseudonym Dick Brave.
Sasha began his creative activity under this pseudonym back in the noughties. Together with his band The Backbeats, Sasha-Dick released two records: Dick This! in 2003 and Rock’n’roll Therapy in 2011. Judging by these two records, Dickasha was originally a cover artist. The same Boppin’ B, with whom, surprisingly, the Backbeats are not connected, mixed the author’s material with covers of everything.
Sash-Dick has a different approach: in many ways, he is a pop artist who does not dislike all these rebellious rock movements. It’s just that he’s a pop artist, as he positions himself, and a pop artist sings popular songs. And initially, designer items in our favorite styles will almost certainly remain niche.
So in his very juicy comeback, Dick presented two discs of covers of various legendary and popular pop songs. And not without a concept! The first disc features the biggest hits of each artist, the tops, so to speak. Tops, according to the album’s press release. The second one, also judging by the press release, contains songs that served as the beginning of the careers of such artists as Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, A-ha and the producers of hits of foreign pop.
Well, let’s see what happened from this experiment.
In short, it turned out as always well. This album is in no way inferior to Dick’s previous works, and also sounds great in combination with other European rockabilly hits such as Boppin’ B and Top Cats.
Disc 1
The title track Back for Good already impresses with a pleasant trick at the beginning of the track, very quickly accelerating it to unbridled fun.
If many people are not particularly familiar with the original of the previous track, the band Take That, then it’s really difficult not to know Sir Elton John and his I’m Still Standing. In Dick’s version, this song has become much more mobile.
Then ABBA came under Dick’s sneaky gaze. The Winner Takes It All is a very good arrangement for traditional Pentecostal ballads.
In I Can See Clearly Now, in the original it was a rock-steady song by Johnny Nash, Italian notes and doo-wop also took root very well.
But the time has come for really heavy artillery! Dick’s Sex Bomb is not what it seems! After all, it’s shuffle blues and it’s really fun.
The eighties and early nineties were a very iron age, I think. And that’s why she often needs a little more lively, wooden, so to speak, fifties. It was this breath of unbridled vitality that Dick breathed into Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got To Do With It.
I didn’t think I’d say this, but Enjoy the Silence is better than the original. So what’s the best way? Be honest. It literally consists of a feeling of reassurance.
Man Eater is also amazing in its own way. It’s amazing that I haven’t heard rockabilly covers of it before. It was literally created for this.
What can melancholic synthpop turn into, besides the most tender ballad? Of course in the country! Ordinary World by Duran Duran looks great in this genre.
The first disc ends with something more, even said royally adequate. Suspicious Minds by Elvis Presley doesn’t sound that ordinary here, but somehow more grounded. On the other hand, there are suspicions that Elvis is more of a pop cultural icon here than a real artist. But even so, it still sounds great. Especially the work of the rhythm section.
The first disc ends on such a high note. And the second one is even more amazing.
Disc 2
Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. Yes, the same pop singer you hear much more about than her. If only she could perform instead of producing samples with such a composition and with such arrangements – then the fame would be justified.
But I don’t like Take on Me in Dick’s version. No, getting into the image is perfect. That’s exactly what A-HA would have sounded like in the perfect fifties. But I would like something more daring. In the spirit of Jerry Lee Lewis.
I can’t praise Beautiful Things either. It sounds much nicer than the original, but it’s a matter of taste – I don’t like the original at all.
Runaway… well, it’s a Runaway. This is no longer a cover, but a standard. Yes, the execution is good. The guitar solo sounds a bit faded.
It turned out to be interesting with APT. In the original, this is a tiktok musical, so coming up with something intelligible from this entertaining chewing gum was still a challenge. The task was completed successfully. What for? The question is rhetorical.
Blinding Lights is my favorite version of the bill cover. Everything is fine in the original, and then there’s the swing. Fine.
After all, I don’t like modern pop music at all. Therefore, Be The One has value only in Dick’s performance. How can I have the patience to recycle all these singing underpants! I’m kind of jealous.
It was as if I expected more from Bad Guy than just a frisky shuffle. There seemed to be a lot of potential. But it still turned out well. Yes?The A Team… I have separate scores to settle with this song. The fact is that I accompanied her performance on percussion very often. And, unfortunately, not in this beautiful arrangement.
And there’s something completely unprecedented and daring in the finale. Billie Jean is recognizable and looks good in swing, especially in the chorus. Especially in the last chorus! Amazing!
Back for Good is the case when an album consisting entirely of covers simply needs to be recognized as copyrighted. Well, unofficially, of course, in our circles. Because I am sure that most readers of this publication have not heard the originals of some compositions and are not going to. The reverse is the case with fans of modern pop music: due to this album, they have a chance to get acquainted with the pop music of a healthy person.
