Considering how many times I’ve mentioned Versus before, it surprises me that I’ve only ever posted one of their songs. So here’s another, to round out the Shangri-Las miniseries. (I’ll save you the misfortune of having to listen to Blondie’s second go at “Out In The Streets” from 1999’s No Exit, which scrubs away all of the charm of the 1975 version.)
2000’s Shangri-La was labeled an EP, though it contains “Shangri-La,” a Versus song that would appear on their final album the same year. There’s a concept to this EP. See if you can spot it from the tracklist:
- Shangri-La
- Shangri-La
- Out In The Streets
- Shangri-La
The other two “Shangri-La”s are covers of songs by Electric Light Orchestra and the Kinks. And of course “Out In The Streets” is a Shangri-Las original. It’s the sort of concept that appeals almost exclusively to record nerds with a weakness for sychronicity, except that now that Versus has done it, the Shangri-Las angle is no longer available for mix tape fodder.
The Blondie demo was an exercise in minimalism (though this is probably because the song was a demo from the start of their career, published only for historical import on the remastered debut album). Though more polished, Versus take the minimalism a step further. The arrangement is spare, the tempo is slowed down to a crawl, and the backing vocals are fed through effects to make them seem distant. It’s not quite the opposite of the original’s melodrama, more like the same story updated to fit a modern sensibility—no longer the great tragedy of yesteryear, but rather just another tale of love lost out of thousands in the big city.