July 2017 - Cover Me

Five Good Covers: Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey)

Posted by Ray Padgett at 2:00 pm 7 Responses »

Jul 312017

When people argue over the Worst Song of All Time, inevitably someone will mention Journey’s (in)famous “Don’t Stop Believin’.” If Starship had never built that city on rock and roll, it would probably take the crown.

Frankly, I like other Journey songs, but “Don’t Stop Believin'” deserves most of the hate it gets. Its ubiquity on class rock radio, bad karaoke stages, and every college a cappella group that ever donned bow ties has made in insufferable (thank the Glee cover inexplicably going to #4 on the charts for the last one). Even The Sopranos couldn’t give it a coolness bump. It is not only Journey’s biggest song by a mile, it’s one of the most well-known songs of the 1980s, period.

The funny thing is that when it came out, not only was it not Journey’s biggest hit, it wasn’t even the biggest hit on that same album. “Open Arms” off Escape went to #2. “Who’s Crying Now” went to #4. “Don’t Stop Believin’,” meanwhile, barely scraped its way into the top ten.

Escape turns 36 this week, which might occasion a Full Album if anyone ever covered any of the other songs off it. But they don’t. They only cover “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Continue reading »

Full Albums: Sly and the Family Stone’s ‘Greatest Hits’

Posted by Patrick Robbins at 5:00 pm 1 Response »

Jul 282017

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

Sly and the Family Stone hadn’t recorded anything new in a year, and the record label wanted to keep Sly’s name in the public consciousness – and if they could make a little money in the bargain, so much the better. So they put together Sly and the Family Stone’s Greatest Hits. If not a cynical cash grab, it was at least within smelling distance.

But a funny thing happened – they scooped up some of the best singles of the sixties, when Sly Stone was writing songs emphasizing the coming together of all races, creeds, and colors into one big party, and the result was what Robert Christgau called “among the greatest rock and roll LPs of all time.” In his A+ review, he went on:

The rhythms, the arrangements, the singing, the playing, the production, and–can’t forget this one–the rhythms are inspirational, good-humored, and trenchant throughout, and on only one cut (“Fun”) are the lyrics merely competent. Sly Stone’s gift for irresistible dance songs is a matter of world acclaim, but his gift for political anthems that are uplifting but never simplistic or sentimental is a gas. And oh yeah–his rhythms are amazing.

Julien Baker Covered “What If God Was One of Us” to Win a Bet – And It’s Actually Good

Posted by Ray Padgett at 10:00 am No Responses »

Jul 272017

A few years ago I attended a musical variety show with bunch of artists playing a few songs apiece. Eric Bazilian, frontman for ’80s new-wave band The Hooters, played a couple Hooters hits for his set before closing with a surprise cover: Joan Osborne’s “One of Us” (as in, “What if God was…”). His version was revelatory, loud and rocking and fun, a far cry from the self-serious lite-FM ballad that dominated airwaves in the mid-’90s. It totally reinvented the song, doing everything a great cover should.

I only learned later that it was not, in fact, a cover. Bazilian in fact wrote the song for Osborne, never properly releasing it himself. But his version made me reappraise a song I had grown to hate through overexposure (no knock on Joan, a talented song-interpreter on several terrific soul-covers albums who gets unfairly tarred by the “one-hit wonder” brush). Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: What’s your favorite Disney cover?

Posted by Staff at 12:00 pm 4 Responses »

Jul 262017

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question: What’s your favorite Disney cover?
Continue reading »

Hootie and the Blowfish’s Mark Bryan Honors College Inspiration on Scruffy the Cat Cover (Premiere)

Posted by Ray Padgett at 10:00 am 1 Response »

Jul 262017

Mark Bryan wears many hats. Best known as the guitarist co-founder of Hootie and the Blowfish, he also runs an after-school music program for kids and just won an Emmy for producing the PBS music series Live at the Charleston Music Hall. He’s lived in South Carolina for decades, and a concert there when he was in college inspired a track on his new album. It’s a good story, so we’ll let him tell it: Continue reading »

Frank Ocean Covers Nigerian Disco Song at FYF Fest

Posted by Maryam Motamedi at 3:00 pm No Responses »

Jul 252017

Fans were on pins and needles at last weekend’s FYF in Los Angeles, fearing the elusive Frank Ocean may not show up again.

Ocean is a rare talent catalogers and writers have a hell of a time classifying. In fact, any one of his albums can fit into multiple musical genres: contemporary pop, hip-hop, psychedelic pop, R&B, alt-R&B, soul, avant-garde, etc. There are multiple Reddit threads dedicated solely to debating how to categorize his music.

Given his range, when this ultra-versatile musician and music lover, whose playlists show a wide-ranging taste, covered a 1984 hit from the Nigerian disco star, Steve Monite, the sound felt natural and fit right into Oceanic soundscapes. Continue reading »