#950. Lineage of Song: “Under Pressure”

 

Queen & David Bowie

Vanilla Ice

One of the more egregious and inexplicable lineages brought us the brief popular career of white rapper Vanilla Ice. He at lasted sampled from greatness.

#949. Lineage of Song: “I Got a Woman”

 

Ray Charles

Kanye West

Jamie Foxx turned his starring role in Ray into a gig for a hot minute, which means his spot in “Gold Digger.”

#948. Lineage of Song: “Killing Me Softly”

Don McLean

Lori Lieberman

Roberta Flack

Fugees

When the Fugees exploded on the scene, it was because they settled into music appreciation like few others. That’s the kind of act I appreciate, in any medium.

#947. Lineage of Song: “99 Problems”

Jay-Z

Hugo 

Here’s one of my favorites, actually, not necessarily the original but the remake, which was featured in the credits for another remake, the 2011 version of Fright Night. 

It’s worth noting Hugo was actually recruited by Jay-Z to his label, and that’s how his cover happened. Also, the most infamous version of “99 Problems” is on The Grey Album, the Danger Mouse mashup of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album. Due to legal issues the whole project is tantamount to urban legend, so I haven’t really pursued it, much less heard any of it until after posting this, when it occurred to me to see if YouTube could help. But it turns out as far as this particular track is concerned, it’s almost exactly the Jay-Z version with minor injections of “Helter Skelter.” Which makes me less interested in experiencing the whole album.

#946. Lineage of Song: “Every Breath You Take”

 

The Police

Sean Combs

I include this one because the famous guitar riff running through it was included in the recently disgraced Combs’ tribute to his late friend Notorious B.I.G. (there’s surprisingly a whole recent history of new songs doing that, borrowing wholesale elements from other songs, like Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” or Train’s “Play That Song”). 

Actually I once again confess that part of this project is shamelessly only to spur me into to watching the results after posting, and doing so led me to revisiting Diddy’s song for the first time since its original release, which revealed that the backing vocals are themselves a riff on the Police song, so it also operates as a cover.