Customer Reviews

Stairways to Heaven - The Money Or The Gun

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If you are a fan for Stairway to Heaven, this album is for you.

Andrew Denton, is a humourous and intelligent interviewer. As the end of each program of "The Money or The Gun" he would have a guest artist put their own spin on Stairway to Heaven.

To hear an Elvis-esque or Beatles version is truly wonderful.

Well worth the investment.

This is a compilation of 22 different bands covering the same song, "Stairway to Heaven", taken from an Australian tv show called the Money or the Gun.

If you like weird covers, this is a must have item for your collection. It is a bit 80's and quite quirky, and possibly far more interesting to an Australian audience, but it is still full of awesome. While there are definitely highs and lows across the album, the combination of the parts is highly satisfying. The diversity on musical styles and approaches to the song means that it actually doesn't get repetitive at all to listen to the same song over and over again. Quite the opposite, on the first listen through is was almost painfully tense when one song was over and we braced ourselves for the next assault.

As many of the artists are unknowns to me, my favorites are probably the cover bands that does the song in "their" bands distinct style, such as the Beatles, Doors, Elvis and B-52's style covers. They are at times so spot on you that you almost feel like you are in a parallel universe where Stairway to Heaven was actually written by the Beatles for example.

I've had this compilation for over 15 years and still get a kick out of it. The different arrangements make each track unique, but all are recognizable. In a few cases only the lyrics remain from the original. From blues to Wagnerian opera, from techno to gospel, the covers run the gamut of musical styles. Not quite parody, it's effective musical comedy. The Leonard Teale spoken word version at the end is almost Shatneresque.