Apparently the Rolling Stones just released a new CD of remixes of Sympathy for the Devil. For me, this is definitely a must-get (and thanks to the beauty of Amazon and credit cards, should be in my happy little hands in a few days).
Sympathy for the Devil has been one of my favorite songs for years, and I’ve collected quite a few versions over the years. I’m sure I don’t have all of the various versions out there yet, but so far I’ve managed to dig up:
- The Rolling Stones, from Beggars Banquet: The original.
- Jane’s Addiction, from Jane’s Addiction: just titled “Sympathy” here, Perry and the boys deliver a blistering live cover during one of their early concerts. One of my favorite versions.
- Guns and Roses, from the Interview with the Vampire soundtrack: A solid but fairly straightforward cover, nothing terribly fancy.
- Skrew, from Shut Up Kitty: A rather noisy, almost unrecognizable industrial cover. Not at all one of the best, but it comes from a fun album of industrial covers of old songs that is pretty solid overall (but more notable for KMFDM’s cover of U2’s “Mysterious Ways” and Blue Eyed Christ’s cover of Animotion’s “Obsession”, to tell the truth).
- Laibach, from Sympathy for the Devil: German industrial band Laibach’s single contains no less than seven different mixes of their cover, ranging from dark-and-gloomy brooding to bright-and-bouncy dancefloor versions which were popular when I was DJ’ing back at Gig’s.
I think that those are all the versions I have now, at least until this new disc appears on my doorstep (though as I’m still working my way through my CD collection, there may be one or two more that I’ve forgotten). According to Flocculent, the new versions aren’t bad at all, either.
“Pleased to meet you…won’t you guess my name…”