Celine Dion, ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ – Terrible Classic Rock Covers
When you think of AC/DC, you think of hot, nasty sex with little regard for neighbors, sanitation issues or local laws concerning public nudity. In fact, an informal survey of the band's catalog reveals that 89 percent of their songs are about sex. You didn't think 'Given the Dog a Bone' was about sharing dinner leftovers with your pet, did you?
One of AC/DC's greatest songs about the deed, 1980's immortal classic 'You Shook Me All Night Long,' has it all: a slippery guitar riff by Angus Young, leering vocals by just-recruited singer Brian Johnson and a big, fat beat any stripper would be proud to shed her miniskirt to. And then there are those lines about American thighs, seduction lines, multiple rounds of intercourse and whatever "she told me to come but I was already there" refers to.
In other words, it has everything you don't think of when you think of Celine Dion. But that didn't stop the Canadian hitmaker from covering the classic slice of sleaze-rock in 2002 at the Divas Las Vegas concert broadcast on VH1 as a benefit for the Save the Music Foundation. Dion had been performing the song onstage for a couple of years when she hauled it out for the Divas show, which was also released on DVD.
But the unstoppable singer of that 'Titanic' song had something special planned for the concert: a duet with Anastacia, a Chicago-born singer who's apparently sold tons of records overseas but barely made a dent in the U.S. Together, the two singers take a sledgehammer to 'You Shook Me All Night Long' and beat its sexual pulse to a sad, limp mound of blah. Absolutely nothing is shaking here.
Even though Dion never recorded a studio version of the song, the live version that you see above delivers more than its share of awfulness, starting with the singer's total fail at air guitar (which may qualify as the worst display of air guitar performed by anyone anywhere since man started documenting history) and ending with a crazy foot-roll thing she does as the drums tumble toward the finale.
In between is one of the harshest crimes against a classic-rock song ever committed to record (or video). We never thought we'd say this about an AC/DC song, but Dion drains whatever subtlety was left in 'You Shook Me All Night Love,' belting out the verses like she's first in line at a Vegas all-you-can-eat buffet, filling up her plate so nobody else gets anything tasty. And don't even get us started on Dion's awkward facial gestures, accompanied by the occasional pelvic thrust, and Anastacia's cowgirl-hooker outfit. We could go on all night long about them.
Watch AC/DC Perform 'You Shook Me All Night Long'