17 collaborations weirder than Jay-Z/Coldplay

Hip-hop vs Phil Collins and other crimes…

The MusicRadar Team, Thu 6 Nov 2008, 11:19 pm UTC

Shatner + Rollins: "illogical" says Mr Spock

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14. Nick Cave / Kylie Minogue: Where The Wild Roses Grow

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Minogue and Cave: "Oh no, I killed Kylie!"

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' 1996 album Murder Ballads features cameos from PJ Harvey and Shane MacGowan, but it was Cave's duet with Kylie that stole the headlines. The song's tale of obsession and murder was a far cry from I Should Be So Lucky. The same year the first lady of Australian pop further expanded her musical horizons, collaborating with Manic Street Preachers on two songs for her Impossible Princess album.

The Welsh band had originally approached her to sing their 1992 single Little Baby Nothing, but label wrangles meant that former porn star Traci Lords got the gig instead. Surprisingly, she didn't suck.

15. Prince / Sheena Easton: U Got The Look

Scotland's Sheena Easton got her break on a reality TV show and started the '80s singing cosy hits such as 9 To 5 (called Morning Train in the US), Modern Girl and Bond theme For Your Eyes Only. Then Prince got his hands on her, and suddenly she was asking us to "come inside my sugar walls".

Prince wrote Sugar Walls for Easton's 1984 album A Private Heaven, but it was in 1987 that the pair had a hit together in the shape of U Got The Look, completing Easton's transformation from girl next door to sex vixen. Though sung by a girl from Motherwell, lines such as "Your body's heck-a-slammin/If love is good, let's get 2 rammin" didn't totally convince.

16. Metallica / Marianne Faithful: The Memory Remains

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Marianne Faithful: metal!

One-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithful is no stranger to close encounters with hairy rockers, but 1997 saw her feature on this cut from Metallica's ReLoad album. This song about a once-great celebrity driven mad by obscurity is pretty solid, with Faithful's vocal contribution adding something sinister to the band's characteristically muscular riffing.

17. The KLF / Tammy Wynette: Justified and Ancient

Previously concentrating on 'stadium house', arch duo The KLF recruited the 'first lady of country', grandma Tammy Wynette - and a Jimi Hendrix lick from Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - for this 1992 country-tinged house oddity. It went to Number 1 in Austria and New Zealand. "Mu Mu Land looks a lot more interesting than Tennessee.... But I wouldn't want to live there," observed Wynette sagely.

These 17 are surely only the beginning...

Do you know of any weirder?

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User comments (3)

JonnyScaramanga

35 weeks ago.

I always thought Ozzy Osbourne covering Born To Be Wild with Miss Piggy was unusual, but what do I know.

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Trott

Mon 10 Nov 2008, 6:09 am UTC

My thoughts (or lack thereof) on Jack White / Alicia Keys are here:
http://blog.musicroutes.com/?p=174
As for weirder--not sure if one needs to hear these before one dies--but...Frank Sinatra & Luciano Pavarotti dueted on "My Way" on Sinatra's Duets II record.
Pavarotti was joined by Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen for a concert performance of "Too Much Love Will Kill You."
Christina Aguilera sang "Live With Me" with the Rolling Stones on the soundtrack to Shine A Light.
Perhaps not quite the same thing, but Paul Anka and Megadeth have both used the same drummer: http://blog.musicroutes.com/?p=72

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Misanthropy

Fri 7 Nov 2008, 5:16 pm UTC

Whenever I listen to "The memory remains" I have to fastforward through Marianne Faithful's shitty singing, illadvised imo

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