After commenting “The Hunger” poster here, it came to my mind that the movie has also became famous for its opening scene, which portrays both Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie flirting with their victims on a night club while a band performs a very dark song. The band was Bauhaus and the song was “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, which is considered the cornerstone of Gothic Rock. Recently, French project Nouvelle Vague pointed its covers machine right towards this Bauhaus classic on their second album, along with several other eightish tracks.
Before saying your haircut is far better, remember that they have defined a music genre while you and me...well...we sport better haircuts.
In almost 10 minutes of its original version, Bauhaus fuels the song with a climatic intro, whose pace is given by a clack pulse and a macabre three-chord bass line (recoiling that famous synth which can be listened on the main theme of “The Shining” soundtrack) that builds the path to the growing guitar riffs, at first distorted and later organized on a traditional rock flavour, which then welcomes Peter Murphy stolid and subtly nasal voice and completing the intense sinister features of the song. Listening to it, I can’t think of other thing than playing this while I would impassively watch my worst enemy helplessly struggling to death on the floor. Kidding! No, I would not kill anyone, I would only watch their death, as any good and sane person would!
Bauhaus – “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (from “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single)
It's not cold nor it's raining. We are French. That should be reason enough to wear cool overcoats.
Nouvelle Vague’s version is certainly less subtle than the original one, since it makes heavy use of cliché horror-movie sounds, like the steps of someone running and the dog barking-like synth that can be listened through the melody. Although the long organ chords which dub the original bass line work very as well to give this version its own identity as the electro-beat that shakes the song on its final half, it is the way the lyrics are sang by Phoebe Killdeer that makes it completely different from the original version: the French singer charges the verses with a luscious and sensual voice, almost as if she was really trying to seduce the listener only to have its blood drained to the last drop – it’s priceless.
Nouvelle Vague – “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” (from Bande à Part)
