Best Cover Songs of 2009

Posted by Ray Padgett at 11:54 pm 4 Responses »
Dec 312009


2009 will disappear into the ether in a few hours, but before it does there’s time for one last retrospective to do: The Top Covers of 2009. The Artists-to-Cover this year seemed to be Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson, though somewhat surprisingly no particularly definitive tribute to the latter has surfaced.

Speaking of tributes, anything off of our Best Cover Albums list was excluded for consideration here (you can still download those songs here though). Without further ado, let the list begin!

25. Imogen Heap – Thriller (Michael Jackson)
Any cover of this song loses something without the Vincent Price voice-over. Imogen Heap may not be the Godfather of Horror, but she’s just quirky enough to pull it off. [Buy]

24. Jason Bajada – You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son (Wolf Parade)
There’s nothing harder to pull off than an acoustic-guitar and voice cover. Anyone can try – just strum the chords – but few stand out from the pack of YouTube wannabes. Bajada is one. [Buy]

23. Thom Yorke – All for the Best (Miracle Legion)
How a semi-obscure songwriter got so many A-listers for his tribute album (Yorke, Michael Stipe, Frank Black) is a bit of a mystery, but the “Idioteque”-esq blips Yorke warbles over somehow makes perfect sense. [Buy]

22. Atlas Sound – Walk a Thin Line (Fleetwood Mac)
Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox’s other band put up this tempered falsetto cover on his blog with little fanfare earlier this year. As with most things he gets his hands on, it exploded. [Buy]

21. Florence and the Machine – Addicted to Live (Robert Palmer)
Largely known for the robo-models who jerk about in the video, “Addicted to Love” gets a much-needed upgrade from blog darling Florence and the Machine whose Lungs was one of the best albums of the year. [Buy]

20. The Dead Weather – You Just Can’t Win (Them)
This list easily could have been the twenty-five best Jack White covers of the year. On the b-side to the “Treat Me Like Your Mother” single (vinyl only, naturally), White hollers like an in-the-gutter bluesman which the band emits musical sludge around him. [Buy]

19. Ben Lee – Kids (MGMT)
To anyone who thinks this song is all synth-hook, this plucked acoustic take should change your mind. [Buy]

18. Matt the Electrician – Faithfully (Journey)
The triumphal horns bring the bombast early on, before ceding the stage to a singer-songwriter and his ukulele. [Buy]

17. Joensuu 1685 – I’m On Fire (Bruce Springsteen)
Bruce Springsteen covered Suicide in 2005 and this one sounds like Suicide fighting back. The feedback frenzy of an opening lasts almost three minutes until the singing begins. And this is the short version! [Buy]

16. Anya Marina – Whatever You Like (T.I.)
I despise this song with a passion, so it’s ironic that not one but two brilliant covers were some of my most-played (the other being by Joan As Police Woman). The lyrics are as profound as ever. Shorty, you the hottest. Love the way you drop it. Brain so good, could have sworn you went to college. [Buy]

15. Eels – Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)
Eels’ E recorded this vulnerable piano cover for MySpace Transmissions, the sound of a man unable to mask his pain. [Buy]

14. Feist and Ben Gibbard – Train Song (Vashti Bunyan)
Indie-tastic charity comp Dark Was the Night had more new covers than many tribute albums, but was excluded for consideration from our list ‘cause it had just as many originals. However, the harmony on this semi-obscure song form 1966 cannot be ignored. [Buy]

13. John Frusciante – Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley)
Frusciante recently quit the Chili Peppers. If that enables him to make more experimental psychedelic covers like this one, thank goodness. He should have brought Flea with him. [Buy]

12. Coldplay – Fight for Your Right (Beastie Boys)
The Beastie Boys canceled a summer of high-profile festival appearance when MCA announced he had cancer. Jay-Z subbed in at All Points West, paying predictable tribute (“No Sleep Til Brooklyn”). More unexpected was Chris Martin’s brilliant minor-key piano ballad two days later. And the crowd goes wild . [Buy]

11. Town Bike – Radio Nowhere (Bruce Springsteen)
Bruce Springsteen closed his four-hour appearance on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle with a mashup of this and “Radio Radio.” Slamming it into “Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio” works too. [Buy]

10. Ben’s Brother – Poker Face (Lady Gaga)
Everyone from Weezer to Daughtry covered “Poker Face” this year, its catchy hook a natural for ironic sing-alongs. The indie-acoustic covers seemed to work best and “beta male” Jamie Hartman sings it so enthusiastically you almost don’t hear the tongue in cheek. [Buy]

9. Chromeo – I Can’t Tell You Why (The Eagles)
Electro-funk duo Chromeo seems an unlikely duo to cover the Eagles. Their effects-laden delivery beats the odds though, taking the 1979 single straight into the twenty-first century. [Buy]

8. Dex Romweber Duo ft. Jack White – Last Kind Word Blues (Geechie Wiley)
Definitely the best Geechie Wiley cover this year. Jack White produced this one for his Third Man Records label and was nice enough to add his enviable yelp to this blues stomp. [Burn]

7. My Gold Mask – Bette Davis Eyes (Jackie DeShannon/Kim Carnes)
My Gold Mask sent this one our way a couple months ago, which just goes to show you artists out there, submissions are never ignored. [Buy]

6. The Pluto Tapes – Wolf Like Me (TV on the Radio)
Just when you thought you were sick of this song, this slow-burn cover strips away the effects to bring the submerged tune to the fore. [Buy]

5. The BPA ft. Iggy Pop – He’s Frank (Slight Return) (The Monochrome Set)
Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook to his mom) created the Brighten Port Authority apparently solely to produce some killer club-funk tracks with his favorite vocalists. Iggy Pop, who these days seems to have made a career out of guest appearances, sneers his way through this unearthed gem. Biggest shock of all: he managed to keep his shirt on during live performances! [Buy]

4. The Gaslight Anthem – I Do Not Hook Up (Kelly Clarkson)
The Gaslight Anthem tend to cover Bruce Springsteen, The Band, and Johnny Cash. Did the heart-on-sleeve rock revivals finally succumb to the temptation of the ironic pop cover? Not a chance. Against all odds Brian Fallon gives a Kelly Clarkson song the emotional heft of “The River.” [Buy]

3. Elizabeth and the Catapult – Everybody Knows (Leonard Cohen)
A song so good we did a whole interview about it. [Buy]

2. Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers – I Only Have Eyes For You (The Flamingos)
Nick Cave recently called this his new favorite band, which is all the recommendation one needs. Their garage-punk racket turns this innocent love song into the best stalker rocker since “Every Breath You Take.” [Buy]

1. Kings of Convenience – It’s My Party (Leslie Gore)
Pure beauty straight out of Norway, complete with a faux-trumpet solo. Nothing more to say. [Buy]

That’s it for this year. See you in 2010!
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Cover Commissions: We Are the Willows

Posted by Ray Padgett at 1:44 am No Responses »
Dec 172009

Cover Commissions is a monthly series in which a featured artist produces a special cover for this blog. Our readers choose the song from a list of suggestions provided by the artist. Any artists interested in participating in a future installment, please email Cover Me at the address on the right.


The sound Minnesota’s Peter Miller creates as We Are the Willows isn’t easy to describe. Here’s how other people have tried: “He holds your hand through the maze of contradictions like a tour guide brimming with whatever he calls ‘soul,” writes one site. “If Schroeder from Peanuts grew up listening to Elliott Smith, it’d sound something like this,” says another. Perhaps the most telling description comes from this University of Wisconsin student breaking into tears watching Miller perform.

Indeed, it’s hard to listen to the haunting melodies of We Are the Willows without being moved. Like an earthier Sigur Rós, Miller conjures grand soundscapes to envelop his curious and questioning lyrics. To record his just-released album A Collection of Sounds and Something Like the Plague he roamed all over Minnesota with a laptop microphone capturing the sounds around him. Those are real birds chirping you’ll hear, and a real train rushing by.

“I tried to reinvent all these things in my surroundings to make them into something different,” Miller told Minneapolis’ City Pages. “A train going by doesn’t mean anything more than a train going by. But the song it’s in, it can be something completely different than what it is. It can be reinvented. So all these sounds, they become something else.”

This sonic map soon became an actual map, depicting Minnesota with the typical “water, bridge, tunnel” landmarks replaced by “died a little bit on the inside” and “nick and i practice karate.” Here it is in miniature (click on the image for a larger version).


Originally a side project from Miller’s popular indie quartet Red Fox Grey Fox, We Are the Willows has taken on a life of its own as bloggers everywhere discover the haunting beauty laced through Miller’s songs. Check out this video of him performing for Minneapolis’ The Current last month.


You’re ahead of the game after watching that. Now you can avoid the oft-made mistake of thinking that bell-clear tenor comes from, well, a girl. No, that’s really him. Here are a couple more samples, from his pay-what-you-want A Family. A Tree. EP.

We Are the Willows – A Funeral Dressed As a Birthday
We Are the Willows – Isabel’s Song

Now that tender tenor comes to Cover Me for December’s Cover Commissions. You know the drill, but here’s a refresher. Below are eleven songs, each linked to a YouTube video. Listen to each song, listen to Miller’s original material, then pick which song he should cover in the poll on the right. You’re dealing with one hell of a voice, so choose carefully!

The Contenders

Voting closes in one week, so get deciding! Vote in the poll on the right.

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Best Cover Albums of 2009

Posted by Ray Padgett at 3:00 pm No Responses »
Dec 142009


There are few things in this world more hit-or-miss than cover albums. If it’s a tribute compilation for a particular songwriter, some artists “get it” more than others. If it’s one artist putting out their own cover album, listeners inevitably like the songs they know more than those they don’t. Such is life.

Compiling this list, one album after another had to be eliminated because of a single song, one Achilles’ heel that brought down the whole disc. Eventually only ten remained, ten cover albums exceptional from beginning to end. Enjoy, and check back next week for the Best Cover Songs of 2009!

10. Various Artists – Keep Your Soul: A Tribute to Doug Sahm

Texas songwriter Doug Sahm never achieved fame outside the southwest, but to his peers in music he’s long been a legend. A prolific songwriter, he maintained three bands throughout his career alongside his solo work: the Sir Douglas Quartet (with whom he had his biggest hit “She’s About a Mover”), the Texas Tornados and the Bottle Rockets. On the tenth anniversary of Sahm’s death came Keep Your Soul, a group of peers and admirers like Los Lobos and Alejandro Escovedo rocking through his Tex-Mex jive.
Charlie Sexton – You’re Doing It Too Hard

9. Steve Earle – Townes

Townes is more than one artist paying tribute to another. It’s a letter from one friend to another, part homage, part eulogy and part thank-you note. Townes Van Zandt mentored Earle when he was just beginning and continued to watch over Earle’s life even as his own spiraled downward. Earle followed the same alcohol and drug-fueled path that ended in Van Zandt’s untimely demise, with one difference: Steve came out the other side. Here he pays tribute to a friend who wasn’t so lucky.
Steve Earle – Loretta (Townes Van Zandt)

8. Various Artists – Seven Year Itch: Paper Bag Records Covers Compilation

On their seventh birthday, Paper Bag Records invited the fans to the celebration, putting up a free covers compilation on their website (still available). Everyone from Beck to Bats for Lashes gets the Paper Bag treatment, with bizarre and fantastic results. If only every birthday was this much fun!
Winter Gloves – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

7. Pascal Fricke – Banging on the Table with an Old Tin Cup III

Another freebie here from Tom Waits superfan Pascal Fricke, it’s volume three of his Waits cover series. His usual all-instrumental formula gets a twist courtesy of YouTube pal Vamosbabe’s sultry singing to Fricke’s typically gorgeous ukulele, guitar, or mandolin. The pair may never have met in person but they sound like two long-time lovers sitting together at a Parisian café.
Pascal Fricke – Green Grass

6. Joan as Police Woman – Cover

When an album’s cover features a hefty pair of butt cheeks (view that NSFW cover here), you know something unusual awaits. Joan Wasser’s slow falsetto-funk version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” gets things started on an off-kilter note, but sounds downright pedestrian compared to the versions of Britney Spears, Adam Ant and Public Enemy that follow. What other album contains covers of both Nina Simone and T-Pain (without AutoTune!)?
Joan As Police Woman – Ringleader Man (T-Pain)

5. Various Artists – War Child: Heroes

What looks like a truly grab-bag line-up (Elbow, Duffy, Scissor Sisters) on this benefit is the result of a single brilliant idea: Get classic artists like Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop to pick a member of the next generation to cover their song. Dylan picked Beck and Iggy picked Peaches (ha!), but the most exciting tune has to be the Hold Steady’s bar-band blast through “Atlantic City,” finally recorded after debuting at an unrecorded Springsteen tribute concert three years ago.
TV on the Radio – Heroes (David Bowie)

4. The Rosewood Thieves – Heartaches By the Pound: The Rosewood Thieves Sing Solomon Burke

Soul man Solomon may seem a surprising choice from these back-porch boys (The Rosewood Thieves Sing The Band would be a more likely album), but the distance between their Americana thump and Burke’s gospel blues allows a whole new sound to emerge organically from these heartbroken cries. This EP only contains six songs, but each stomps and swings like Wilson Pickett fronting the Black Keys.
The Rosewood Thieves – Home In Your Heart (Solomon Burke)

3. Various Artists – SPIN Presents Purplish Rain

SPIN magazine couldn’t get the notoriously press-shy Prince to comment for their Purple Rain 25th anniversary cover story, so they did him one better by soliciting new versions of every song on the legendary soundtrack. Lavendar Diamond slow-burns “Purple Rain,” Of Montreal electronically freaks out for “Computer Blue” and The Twilight Singers sound like the coolest church choir ever on “When Doves Cry.”
The Twilight Singers – When Doves Cry

2. Various Artists – Play Some Pool, Skip Some School, Act Real Cool: A Global Pop Tribute to Bruce Springsteen

This list is concerned with quality over quantity, but any tribute album that includes 38 brand-new covers deserves extra commendation. All obscure groups, all incredible readings of Bruce Springsteen classics, rarities and newer songs (including three tunes from Bruce’s 2002 The Rising). With 38 songs they can’t all be brilliant, but somehow even the album’s one miss – Travis Elborough’s spoken-word “My Hometown” – is so truly awful it becomes endearing, a moment of unintended hilarity lightening a tale of resilience tested and dreams crushed.
The Vatican Cellars – Darkness on the Edge of Town

1. The Lemonheads – Varshons

Twelve songs of booze-pop genius cover both classic tunes by songwriters like Leonard Cohen (Liv Tyler guests!) and Townes Van Zandt and obscurities from July and the unfortunately-named FuckEmos. Their brilliantly drawled version of GG Allin’s “Layin’ Up with Linda” turns the best boredom-induced murder song since “Folsom Prison Blues” into a jaunty pub sing-along.
The Lemonheads – Layin’ Up with Linda (GG Allin)

And there you have it. Tune in next week for the Best Cover Songs of 2009!

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Shuffle Sundays: Jacob's Ladder

Posted by Ray Padgett at 6:30 pm No Responses »
Dec 132009

Shuffle Sundays is a weekly feature in which we feature a cover chosen at random by my iTunes shuffle. The songs will usually be good, occasionally be bad, always be interesting. All downloads will only be available for one week, so get them while you can. After you listen, discuss this week’s tune in the comments.

Marc Chagall. Jacob’s Ladder. 1973.

When Bruce Springsteen announced in 2006 he was releasing an album of Pete Seeger songs, fans were perplexed. First of all, Pete Seeger wrote a grand total of zero of the disc’s songs, so why give him all the credit on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions? Plus, a full album of traditional songs about mule-driving and froggie-courting seemed like a questionable career move.

Upon the album’s release though, many previous skeptical fans suddenly got it. These weren’t über-sincere acoustic guitar folk songs; this was his best loudest party album since this first disc of The River. Horns blared, accordions wailed, background singers yelped…there was even a washboard.

A high point of the disc was a take on the traditional “Jacob’s Ladder” that shook the heavens. Music journalist Dave Marsh described the tune in his liner notes (available online):

A Negro spiritual based on Genesis 28:11-19, best known as a Sunday School tune. It refers to the prophetic dream given to Jacob at Beth-El, while he is fleeing his brother, Esau, whom Jacob has cheated out of his inheritance. In the dream, angels are ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. While they do this, God promises Jacob that his seed “shall be as the dust of the earth” and spread throughout the world.

Slaves related to the dream powerfully, because it ended with a covenant that promised liberation: “I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (This is consistent with the Midrash interpretation of the steps of the ladder as the exiles that the Jews would suffer.)

“Jacob’s Ladder” is another song that is much more commonly sung than recorded. Arlo Guthrie, Jane Siberry and Greg Brown made contemporary versions. There are vintage roots recordings by, among others, Hylo Brown, E.C. Ball, and Paul Robeson and gospel renditions by the Staple Singers, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Doris Troy and the Clara Ward Singers. Pete Seeger’s version can be found on Singalong: Live at the Sanders Theater, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980.

If that all sounds a bit solemn, watch this video of the band doing it at St. Luke’s Cathedral for the BBC (also worth watching: this promo vid).

That came from May of 2006. By the fall this song (and every other) had gotten even more riotous, with more solo, more hollering, and even more joy. The tremendous Live In Dublin CD/DVD chronicles that period, the band hitting their peak as the tour rolled to a close. This rendition of “Jacob’s Ladder” comes from there.

Bruce Springsteen and the Sessions Band – Jacob’s Ladder (Trad.) [Buy]

What do you think? Discuss this song in the comments section below.

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Giveaway: Larger Than Life In 3D Prize Pack! Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper, and more

Posted by Ray Padgett at 5:00 pm No Responses »
Dec 092009
THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS TO ALL WHO PARTICIPATED.


At this fall’s Austin City Limits the Dave Matthews Band busted out a smoking cover of the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” Watch a video on YouTube.

Great cover — bet you wish there was some better quality footage of that. Well there’s not just better quality footage coming out, there’s high-definition 3D in-theaters-only footage coming out! Larger Than Life…In 3D hits theaters on Friday for a one-week engagement and features concert video like you’ve never seen. The Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper and Relentless7 and Gogol Bordello get the 3D treatment and, as I wrote in my review, this ain’t your mama’s concert movie. Here’s a trailer (which is of course in 2D, so expect to be intrigued, but not awed).


In honor of the occasion, Cover Me is giving away some prize packs from the film. And we’re not talking a 10% off coupon a postcard. We’re talking posters, t-shirts and, of course, free tickets! All the info you need to win below.

Cover Me’s Larger Than Life…In 3D Giveaway


Four (4) Grand Prizes:
1 Poster
1 T-Shirt
1 3D Lanyard
and 2 free tickets for you and a friend!

To enter, put your email address in the comments. Four winners will be picked at random.

But before you enter, go here to make sure it’s playing near you. Though 350 locations is a lot, it’s not everywhere. At the above link you can also request the film come to your city, but there’s no guarantee.

Because this film opens Friday, this contest is only open for 24 hours! Remember, because this is 3D, once this movie leaves theaters it is gone for good (no DVD!). Enter now!

Some covers to whet your appetite:

Dave Matthews Band – All Along the Watchtower (live 6/26/09) (Bob Dylan)
Ben Harper & Relentless7 – Under Pressure (Queen)
The Hectics – Supertheory of Supereverything (Gogol Bordello)

———————————–

Got something you’d like to give away? Email us at the address on the right!

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Full Albums: David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"

Posted by Ray Padgett at 3:49 am 4 Responses »
Dec 092009

The first post of the month always features covers of every track on a famous album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!


The thing most surprising about the music on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is its accessibility. Just imagine someone hearing the concept behind this album for the first time. “So it’s about a transsexual alien who tells the world it only has five years to survive. This news makes the transsexual alien sad, so he writes some songs and forms a hit band. Then he becomes Jesus for awhile, until other aliens come along and rip him into little bits to absorb his essence.” Good God, the person would think, what could music about that possibly sound like? Well, it turns out it sounds like good old-fashioned rock and roll with a sprinkle of glam. No one (including Bowie) really understands the plotline, but everyone can get on board with the incredible music.

The Arcade Fire – Five Years
In 2005 Wynn Butler and the Arcade Fire crew performed this with Bowie himself at a iTunes-released Fashion Rocks concert (great video here). This comes from around that time, a Bowie-less concert performance that features all the bombast we’ve come to expect from the Fire. [Buy]

Tim Reynolds – Soul Love
Longtime Dave Matthews sideman Tim Reynolds may be one of the best acoustic guitar players around today. He’s got dozens of concerts available for free download at archive.org, most featuring a wide selection of instrumental covers like this one. [Buy]

L.A. Guns – Moonage Daydream
One of the best opening couplets in rock: “I’m an alligator / I’m a mama-papa coming for you!” The Whites Stripes do a raw version of this live (video), but stay tuned for some more polished Jack White. [Buy]

Nena – Starman
You probably know Nena from her hit “99 Luftballoons,” unless you live in Germany where she’s a legitimate artist with an actual career and everything. Wherever you’re from, her album Cover Me (dumb name, huh) is worth snagging, if only for the phenomenal two-sentence Wikipedia description: “Cover Me is a cover album by German pop star Nena, released in 2007. It contains songs that she likes.” Apparently one song she likes is a German-language version of “Heroes.” [Buy]

The Raconteurs – It Ain’t Easy (Ron Davies)
I used to exclude albums with non-original songs from Full Albums consideration until the irony of excluding artists who did covers from a cover songs blog became too great. Plus, we know Jack White’s a fan of the album (see above), so his shrieking guitar work is surely tribute to original Ziggy player Mick Ronson. [Buy]

Seu Jorge – Lady Stardust
Wes Anderson is a weird director. There’s no other explanation to explain why he scored his The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with singer/actor Jorge’s Portugese-language versions of Bowie classics. Anderson even put videos of Jorge performing the songs in the movie! Here’s the clip for “Lady Stardust.” [Buy]

Techno Cowboy – Star
One fine day singer-songwriter Brad Stubbs decided to strap in some weird 80s instruments under pseudonym Techno Cowboy and record The Ziggy Stardust Omnichord Album. The world was never the same. [Buy]

Shesus – Hang On To Yourself
Good band name, badass band. [Buy]

derpferdheissthorst – Ziggy Stardust
This one was recorded for one of our earliest Cover Commissions series, narrowly beating “The Safety Dance” and “You Spin Me Around.” If you like what you hear (and you will), these German gents have a few more covers available at their spiffy new website. [Buy]

Golden Delicious – Suffragette City
David Bowie loved Mott the Hoople so much he offered them this song if they agreed not to break up. They declined, so Bowie came back with a second offer: “All the Young Dudes.” They recorded it, had a massive hit…then broke up anyway. [Buy]

Black Box Recorder – Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide
The original plays while “the infinites” tear a washed-up old Ziggy to bits onstage. This cover would be better suited to soundtrack the last dance at prom. Until the unexpected ending. [Buy]

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Shuffle Sundays: Buddy Holly

Posted by Ray Padgett at 5:00 pm No Responses »
Dec 062009

Shuffle Sundays is a weekly feature in which we feature a cover chosen at random by my iTunes shuffle. The songs will usually be good, occasionally be bad, always be interesting. All downloads will only be available for one week, so get them while you can. After you listen, discuss this week’s tune in the comments.


To think, it all started with a few simple questions. What’s with these homies dissin’ my girl? Why do they got to front? The most immortal nerd-rock opening lines in history and Weezer’s career was made.

It almost didn’t happen though. In the biography Rivers’ Edge: The Weezer Story, producer Ric Ocasek of the Cars said of Weeezer frontman River’s Cuomo, “I remember at one point he was hesitant to do ‘Buddy Holly’ and I was like, ‘Rivers, we can talk about it. Do it anyway, and if you don’t like it when it’s done, we won’t use it. But I think you should try.’” Thankfully, reason prevailed (nudged along by notes Ocasek left around the studio saying, “We want Buddy Holly!”).

Cuomo embraced the tune’s silliness with director Spike Jonze (he of recent Where the Wild Things Are notoriety), greasing back the quartet’s hair and plopping them in the original Arnold’s Diner from Happy Days. Check it out below and look for original Arnold actor Al Molinaro’s guest appearance.


New Zealand duo Little Pictures tackled the ‘90s classic for the covers compilation Buffetlibre Rewind 2.0, still available for free download. They explain their reasoning:
We chose Buddy Holly because this song reminds us both of our introduction to computers. When we were both young, 7 or 8, our parents both got the family their first PC with Windows 95. And low and behold, this awesome video clip of footage from Happy Days came with the OS.

“Buddy Holly” originally appeared on Weezer’s debut Weezer [the Blue Album], which was the subject of one of our full-album cover posts a while back.

Little Pictures – Buddy Holly (Weezer) [Buy]

What do you think? Discuss this song in the comments section below.

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Cover News: December 5, 2009

Posted by Ray Padgett at 7:11 pm No Responses »
Dec 052009

Cover News is a weekly feature keeping you up to date on the goings-on in the world of cover tunes, tribute albums, etc. Plus, at the bottom we post the array of cover tunes we’ve been sent in the past week. Have you recorded a cool cover? Send an mp3 to the email address on the right and we’ll post it!



This Week’s News

Every day of Advent Cover Me will be tweeting out a new Christmas cover. 25 days, 25 songs. I’ll catch you up to speed on the first four, but to get the rest follow us on Twitter! [Twitter]
DAY 1: Julian Casablancas – I Wish It Was Christmas Today
DAY 2: Copeland – Do You Hear What I Hear?
DAY 3: Sufjan Stevens – Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
DAY 4: Bruce Springsteen – Jungle Bell Rock
DAY 5: Coming soon to Twitter…

Only two more days to vote on November’s Cover Commissions! Then, later this week, December’s vote begins. [Cover Me]

Turn it up to 11! New Spinal Tap tribute album up over at Coverville, featuring friend of the blog John Dissed taking on the holiday classic “Christmas with the Devil.” [Coverville]

The people behind the epic Springsteen tribute Play Some Pool… just released a free four-track Christmas EP with two originals and two covers of holiday tunes by Wham! and the Beach Boys. [Where It’s At Is Where You Are]

MGMT covers never get old. With that in mind, check out Digital Leather’s new version of “Time to Pretend”! [Stereogum]

At a recent My Old Kentucky Blog show, Blind Pilot covered Gillian Welch’s “Look At Miss Ohio.” The nice thing about blog-sponsored shows: they tend to be filmed. [MOKB]

YouTube cover gal Nataly Dawn’s got a new one up, the Magnetic Fields’ “Book of Love.” Even better: you can download half a dozen free covers at her MySpace. [YouTube]

There’s been a lot of speculation over when/where the Flaming Lips would do their rumored Dark Side of the Moon cover. Well, it’s New Year’s Eve in their native Oklahoma City! [Flaming Lips]

Bacardi commissioned Van She to cover “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” thus sending the message to teens everywhere that dying from drinking too much vodka is nothing to worry about. [Soundcloud]

This Week’s Submissions

Tristan Clopet – Roslyn (Bon Iver & St. Vincent) [more]

Neil Nathan – Santa Claus Is Coming to Town [more]

The Peptides – Fallen Leaves (Billy Talent) [more]

Taxi Taxi – Oh My Darling, Clementine (Trad.) [more]

Twiggy Frostbite – Little Drop of Poison (Tom Waits) [more]

Vivian Girls – He’s Gone (The Chantels) [more]

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