Versions

For whatever reason, there were a few songs in 1984 and 1985 that were recorded by more than one artist. It almost always concerned a Euro-pop trash song. Usually the first (known) version was the better one, and so I never saw the point of the others that were presumably covers. Here's the ones I remember:

The first one has already been mentioned by sp1873: Self Control, which was a pretty big hit by two separate bands/artists:

Laura Branigan:



and then RAF:



I by far prefered Laura Branigan's version, which was sexier (the way she sings "you take myself" in the chorus, oh my!) and had a bit of an edge with the prominent electric guitars. RAF was probably produced to appeal to the female side of the audience. Still, so tacky.

Then we had Live is Life. The version that most people remember (and is probably the original one) is by Austrian band Opus:



It's heavy-handed, and that voice just plain irks me! Whereas the lesser known version by Stargo was almost poignant. I remember playing belote with my school friends during lunch break and listening to this song and singing it in unison!



It was faster, I loved the voice (hey, give me a break, I was 14), and the almost military "la la la la la" just made things somehow more... erm... serious.

Then we have to get to the bottom of the barrel for the next one. One of them is the awful Kalimba de Luna.



I hate pan flute in general, and when it is combined with all sort of fake synthesizer sounds it is just offensive. But of course it was so successful that Boney M covered it right away, and we have the almost identical version below:



But wait! This abomination was also covered in French by Dalida. Here she is performing it during Champs-Elysees:



And finally, something a little bit different. A fun little zydeco song by Rockin' Sidney called "My Toot-Toot" was a hit in the US:



But the version that made it to France was a cover by Denise LaSalle, and for once the cover was better than the original due to LaSalle's powerful and playful vocals:



But then of course once again someone immediately covered the song in French:



Really, was that cover necessary?