Stooges cover Madonna: Rock Hall not useless after all

What goes around (goes around, goes around) comes all the way back around

We have no idea who pitched who on having the Stooges covering Madonna's "Burning Up" at the RNRHOF induction last night, but we want to have this person inducted into the Rock N Roll hall of fame, and quickly. Ironically, we missed this live last night because we were watching a rerun of last year's "Fashion Rocks," on which the Stooges play "I Wanna Be Your Dog" -- and, later on the same show, the Gossip turn the end of their "Yr Mangled Heart" into an impromtu disco cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog." (Beth Ditto, prefacing the song: "Madonna said 'Express Yourself'; Morrissey said, 'Accept Yourself'; and RuPaul said, 'You Gotta Work.'") There's no real musical irony here at all. Madonna's original demo version of "Burning Up" made it abundantly clear, even moreso than the official version, that it was more or less a punkish new-wave tune -- which is one reason that punks can't resist covering it. (Said punks include the man playing bass in the Stooges last night -- Mr. Mike Watt, who previously covered "Burning Up," as well as "Into the Groove," with Sonic "Ciccone" Youth back in 1986. Sonic Youth, of course, were also known to cover "I Wanna Be Your Dog.") More to the point, one of the revelations of Madge's return to touring a couple years ago was that she was learning to play guitar -- or at least learning to play just enough that she could sneak into the set a version of "I Love New York" that quotes explicitly from (wait for it) "I Wanna Be Your Dog," in which song she also tended to scream, Iggy-like, things such as "Fuck off!" and "Go suck George Bush's dick!" We hope someone gets a better clip of the Stooges' Madonna set on YT quickly. And someone should get the live tracks added to iTunes or something. Kthxbai!

Gossip, "Yr Mangled Heart/I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Live 2007)

Madonna, "I Love New York/I Wanna Be Your Dog" (Live 2006)