Ekseption – Ekseption (1969): Ekseption is a Dutch band that took a somewhat different tack on each of their albums; their debut album, Ekseption mainly featured rock versions of classical music, although a cover of “Dharma for One” by Jethro Tull is the second track. The opening song “The 5th” is based on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and several other pop versions have come along over the years. Two examples are “A Fifth of Beethoven” (1976) by Walter Murphy, giving the “da-da-da-dum” introductory line a disco treatment; and the Electric Light Orchestra’s cover of the Chuck Berry song “Roll Over Beethoven” (1973) that incorporated some portions of the symphony into their eight-minute version of the song. However, unlike most pop versions of the Fifth, Ekseption brings in other parts of the symphony into their song to make it a more complete work. Other familiar classical music selections on the album include “Sabre Dance” and Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue”.
