Okay, so there’s this band Teddybears that’s just been popping up everywhere over the last few weeks, particularly on the MP3 blogs. People keep posting the same track over and over (and I am going to as well, with a twist) and the buzz is predictably building. There’s one thing that strikes me as really weird about the whole thing.
Teddybears isn’t exactly a new band.
Not by any stretch of the imagination!
They’re better known everywhere else in the world as Teddybears STHLM — the STHLM is for their home of Stockholm — and they’ve realeased quite a few albums over the last, oh, fifteen years. In fact their U.S.A. debut, Soft Machine, is filled with previously released songs. A few have been re-recorded to bulk up / update the sound and now feature vocals from instantly recognizable voices like Neneh Cherry, Iggy Pop and Annie. For the most part there isn’t anything new so I’m not sure why people are only now going gonzo over the band.
Heck, their actual lead singer is also the voice of The Caesars (though I can’t figure out if it’s Teddybears or the Caesars that one would consider his side project,) so it’s not exactly like his own vocals are exactly alien to the American ear!
Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the bands last two albums so I’m pleased to see them getting some exposure over here finally. I guess my only gripe is reading all the blogs that go on and on about them but get so much of the information about them so wrong.
To give you an idea of what I mean by the songs being re-worked (and how i’m not 100% sold it was actually always necessary) here is “Yours To Keep,” the lead-off single (I presume, though it may be “Cobrastyle,”) off Soft Machine. Compare it to the song’s original incarnation on 2000’s Rock’n’Roll Highschool.
Teddybears STHLM “Yours To Keep” (with Paolo)
Teddybears “Yours To Keep” (with Neneh Cherry)
See? The new version with Neneh Cherry is rather bulked up, and I dig it, but the original with Paolo just has this sort of wistful air that is so timeless I’m always in the mood to hear it.
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We here at donewaiting like nothing better than giving back to our readership, and what better way to do that than with free stuff? We’ve got a copy of the latest Teddybears twelve-incher and we want to give it to YOU. All you have to do is send us an email with your name and address, with TEDDYBEARS in the subject line, to:
Do we really need another crunching, crushing, metal outfit skirting around the edges of the sludgier aspects of the whole stoner rock movement? Probably not, but don’t tell that to Austin’s 