Great White, 'Substitute"

Honest to Glam, I never knew there was an official video for Great White's cover of "Substitute." I saw the video for the first time last night while watching Metal Mayhem on MTV Classic. Yes, it was a swinging Friday night at my house. Just me, Eric, the cat and 80s metal.

I have to say the video wasn't bad but I was mostly just so thrown by how different the members of Great White looked. To be fair, the clip was from like 1984. Plus, the band's self-titled debut never did that much for me. I tend to gravitate toward their later work more and I love ...Twice Shy as a complete work. What am I missing here - should I give "Substitute" another critical listen?

Comments

[stu]

yeah … never been their best cover. glad they got better at making videos. way too much going on here, but it fits with 1984, like totally shocked mtv didn’t make this a #1 hit.

[Him]

Great find, Allyson! I think this is the version of the band with Black and Holland in the band, and Lardie was only engineering (or something like that). Not a bad hard rock The Who cover!

Geesh, Russell and Kendall look so young! The latter even looks relatively slim, as the demon alcohol made him puff up in the years when they were most popular.

It goes to show that bands evolve over time, often settling on the sound that gets them the most attention. The blues-ish direction certainly served GW well. But this shows their early sound, much like Out of the Night/On Your Knees. By Shot in the Dark, they were moving towards the sound that became their calling card.

I only wish--again--that things hadn't soured between Russell and Kendall. The former's latest Zep cover album sounded bored and uninspired. And I can't really get into the new iteration of Kendall's GW. Such a shame.

[Him]

Hahaha, Stu. I see you beat me to the first post . . . and that we disagree, to some extent, on this song. No problemo. Everyone's got an opinion, right?

[Kixchix]

Never knew about this. Falls in line and is pretty typical of ‘80’s covers. Priest- Johnny B Goode WASP- The Real Me, was it House of Lords- Can’t Find My Way Home,. Faster P- Your So Vain, etc. I actually read in the paper today (yes I like reading a newspaper) that a band called the Arrows wrote I Love Rock n Roll. Not Joan Jett. That blew me away!!! Royalties from that song must’ve treated them well through the years. Love stuff like that

[Him]

Kixchix, I love you to death. We had a rough start years ago. But I learned that I was a dumb arse!

That said, this is heads-and-shoulders (and the dandruff issue is a constant problem for some people) above Priest's cover of JBG!!! That cover was horrid. And I think that HoL's cover and WASP's cover (especially) were better than GW's cover. But it is all a matter of opinion, right?

Like you, Kikchix, I learned about Arrow's original version fairly late in the game (perhaps five years ago?). And the original stands up well, even with Merrill's odd 'hmms' in the song. Thing is, even though Jett's version is pretty much a straight copy (save the solo), she added some sexuality and grit to her take.