THAT WASN’T THEM – VOLUME 1: ROBBING THE CRADLE

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Today we have another guest post by ElvisShotJFK. He has filth for you. As in, Cradle of . . . or maybe not.]

Back when Napster ruled college dorms, it allowed people to download and listen to all kinds of music that they might not have otherwise been able to hear. What started off as a simple idea snowballed into a fight with labels and artists picking sides; some were against the practice, while some embraced what it could do for their exposure.

Most people may remember Metallica’s role in the downfall of Napster, armed with 60,000 pages of user info.To many, the band seemed hypocritical, considering the tape trading that preceded the widespread usage of the internet that fueled the metal masses. However, Metallica did have a good reason to be concerned, but I think they handled it poorly and instead of looking at the immediate problem they faced (a leaked demo of “I Disappear”), they went for the symptom – the users of Napster. Napster’s founder didn’t help matters any when he showed up at the VMA’s wearing a Metallica shirt, then joked that he borrowed it from a friend.

Years have gone by and the Napster of old is long gone, as are some of its alternatives. While peer-to-peer is still around, torrents and hosting sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload and dozens of others serve the same purpose, but without many of the actual benefits. If someone had a bunch of stuff you were familiar with and liked, chances are he or she also had some other stuff that you’d like, not to mention the possibility of finding demos, rare tracks and bootlegs. Plus, not every download means a lost sale, but that’s a matter for another time.

Legal issues aside, there was another dark side to Napster and its kind — people who had no fucking clue who made the songs. “Weird Al” Yankovic was credited to almost every unknown funny song (or parody), while many a metal song were attributed to the big names, Metallica and Megadeth at the top of the heap.

Sadly, this trend continues to this day, and thus I present to you two songs attributed to one band, this band being Cradle Of Filth, who I’ve been a fan of for many years. I’m not here to defend the band, because they don’t need it and I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind about them. That’s not why I’m here, and I don’t mind if you don’t like the band. I do mind some of the attitudes people have toward the band, but there’s not really anything I can do about that.

So, let’s move on to the songs, after the jump.

First, let’s start off with “Fear Of The Dark”.

Cradle Of Filth has covered Iron Maiden before, but it was “Hallowed Be Thy Name”. The version of “Fear Of The Dark” in question was actually done by Graveworm, an Italian band that’s been mentioned here at No Clean Singing before in comments – partly because of the covers that they’ve done. If you haven’t heard it before, or want to hear it again, here it is for your enjoyment.

Before moving on to the next song on the list, here’s Cradle Of Filth’s aforementioned cover of “Hallowed Be Thy Name” to chew on.

“Castlevania”

While I can kind of understand why “Fear Of The Dark” is credited to Cradle Of Filth, “Castlevania” is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it’s the gothic, symphonic sound, maybe it’s the vampire mythos that the band has explored. And considering the Castlevania series of games, it seems like it would work.

But it’s not Cradle Of Filth. “Castlevania” isn’t even the song’s name. It’s actually “Bloody Tears”, one of the oldest songs in the series, originally heard in Castlevania II: simon’s Quest.

This version is actually by Naoto Shibata PROJECT, playing metal rearrangements of music from Konami video games, long before Nobuo Uematsu did the same with Final Fantasy music as part of The Black Mages. However, like Square-Enix with The Black Mages albums (three so far, plus the soundtrack to Advent Children, which is pretty much The Black Mages but credited differently), Konami gave their blessing for these albums.

I apologize now for the brief nerd moment.

In case you want to hear the original, here you go…

Oh, in case Naoto Shibata’s name sounds familiar to any of you, he was the bassist for Anthem and was part of Loudness‘ lineup for a while.

That’s all for this inaugural installment of “That Wasn’t Them”. Hopefully you learned something – unless you already knew that Cradle Of Filth didn’t do these songs, then this obviously doesn’t apply to you. Knowing is half the power, or something like that.