to eleven

Tomorrow is my birthday celebration (though not actually my birthday), which means that I’ll be hearing (and singing, most likely) a lot of ’80s music. To prepare, today, I’m looking at Assholes all over YouTube covering music from my misspent childhood.

First up, we have the very talented Rodney Shenk. When I first started this video of him covering a-ha’s “Take on Me” , I said to myself, “There is NO WAY this guy’s hitting the high note.” This guy IS hitting the high note, my friends, and not like I do after drinking six Tom Collinses and grabbing the karaoke mic. No, he just rocks.

Here’s CookieKatie covering one of my favorite songs from the ’80s, Phil Collins’ “Against All Odds.” If you don’t like this song, just stop. Right now, just quit. Anyway, her rendition is a little rushed, but it’s still great.

Besides “Pretty in Pink,” the best Psychedelic Furs song is “The Ghost in You.” FACT. jbearden does an awesome cover which, as one commenter says, sounds a lot like the Robyn Hitchcock version.

And finally, here is lampidistelami12 doing George Michael’s “Faith.” I’ve mentioned this guy before…I think he’s learning to play guitar on YouTube. This is much better than his earlier efforts, and he has spirit, which counts for something.

So those are this week’s Assholes. If you liked them, comment on their individual YouTube pages to let them know where you heard them, and come back next Thursday for more Assholes!

-jason