Maybe you remember the early 2010’s fashion-snob appeal of “Who Wore It Better?,” a question that asked us to pass judgment on two celebrities (usually female) who made the faux pas of wearing nearly-identical outfits.
Music fans often have similar snob tastes in comparing versions of songs that were covered by more than one artist. For example, despite their funny glossoaliac adaptation, I’ve never really liked Blue Swede’s early-Seventies “Hoo-ga chaka, hoo-ga chaka, hoo-ga hoo-ga, hoo-ga chaka” version of “Hooked On a Feelin’,” which just seemed juvenile compared to the 1968 classic version by BJ Thomas . . . and, hell, I don’t even much care for BJ Thomas in the first place.
In any case, to my point . . .
Some of you youngsters out there may not remember Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame songwriting duo who wrote dozens of hits in the Fifties and Sixties, including “Can’t Get Used to Losing You, a song that was surprisingly recorded by one of the most conservative mainstream singers of the Sixties, the parents-love-him short-haired-and-sweater-wearing Andy Williams, whose version hit Number Two on the charts in 1963, which meant that millions of teenagers were grooving to the record.
Similarly, a lot of new wave fans were also grooving to the same song in 1983 when The English Beat recorded a reggae-influenced version that became a Number 3 hit in the UK and an MTV fan-favorite in the U.S.
So who do you think — who wore it better?
