People say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and when it comes to music, there's no better form of imitation than a tribute. This could be anything from playing a cover of a great tune to becoming a full-on impersonator and taking on a star's persona. But this week, talk show host Jimmy Fallon and Avengers actor Paul Rudd have taken the tribute music video to a whole new level, with an amazing, shot-for-shot remake of a classic music video.
Yes, this time the two performers decided to recreate Dead or Alive’s hit 1985 song, "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)." Wearing some eye-meltingly-gaudy retro costumes, Rudd played the part of the British pop band’s lead vocalist Pete Burns, while Fallon decided to portray Dead or Alive’s drummer Steve Coy.
Check out Paul and Jimmy's amazing rendition of the classic pop video below:The footage was only uploaded to YouTube yesterday, but it's already managed to amass over 380,000 views, and thousands of comments from fans who loved the performance.
Discussing the making of the song in his memoir Freak Unique: My Autobiography, Burns stated that the record company was initially unenthusiastic about the track; so much that Burns was forced to take out a £2,500 loan to record it. After it had been recorded, Burns claims that: "the record company said it was awful. It was unanimous – it was awful, it was rubbish," forcing them to self-fund its entire production.
In a later BBC 4 interview conducted before his death, Burns added that the confrontational attitude of the producers led to "quite a bad vibe" for the entirety of their time spent in the studio, calling it a "time of intense friction".