What do Sufjan Stevens and Katy Perry have in common? Well, they both have their roots in the Christian music world for one (Danielson Famile, “Katy Hudson”). And now a second: They’ve both been given terrific covers by Brooklyn singer-songwriter Kelsey Byrne aka VÉRITÉ. When we last heard from her, she was covering Sufjan’s “John, My Beloved” – it made our Best of 2018 list – and now she’s back tackling Perry’s “Teenage Dream.” Continue reading »
While covers of any song are a welcome departure from the norm, remakes of popular radio hits in particular can often be the most refreshing. Take, for instance, Portland-based indie duo White Hinterland’s trippy rendition of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream.” Released in July 2010 off Perry’s vastly successful album of the same name, “Teenage Dream” quickly became yet another oft-played number-one single for the pop star. While the rest of the world has moved way past “Teenage Dream” to Perry’s latest chart-topping hit, “The One That Got Away,” White Hinterland revisited the track at a Daytrotter session. Continue reading »
Back in September, we posted a shaky live cover of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” by the Horrible Crowes, the new project by the Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon and guitar tech Ian Perkins. Now, they’ve covered Perry’s song live at WFUV radio in New York, and listeners can get a way better idea of how well these guys rock Perry’s pop tune. While it may seem like a strange choice for the band, Fallon hits every note in Perry’s tune with such effortless charisma that listeners are bound to ask for more genre crossing covers from the Crowes in the future. Continue reading »
The music press (or at least the band’s publicists) tout the Rescues as an “indie supergroup.” Bands with major label contracts and five songs featured on Grey’s Anatomy are considered indie? And bands that don’t have any particularly famous members are now “supergroups”? What is the world coming to?
Regardless of the labels foisted on them, the Rescues are a talented group of musicians. The band’s four-part harmonies remind the listener of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. The Rescues use these harmonies to great effect on their cover of Katy Perry‘s “Teenage Dream,” recorded live in studio, though it appears it took four and a half takes to do it. The Rescues’ version ebbs and flows with a near-a cappella bridge and symphonic drum fills. It’s fun watching Rob Giles switch from drums to guitar and back again, without screwing up the vocals. Continue reading »
It’s Darwin Deez week on Cover Me! A few days ago, we heard him cover the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Scar Tissue.” Now he’s back, but the group’s moved from Australia to Lincolnshire, England for the BBC’s Live Lounge college tour at Lincoln University. Deez also played a solo two song set that included a “secret cover.”
The DJs asked why Deez chose Katy Perry‘s “Teenage Dream” as the cover (whoops, secret’s out). He told them he admired the songwriters, Dr. Luke and Max Martin—hit-writers for *NSYNC, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Pink and others. Interestingly, it wasn’t their songs he admired, but their methods. Dr. Luke and Max Martin write songs in groups of four or five, whereas Deez writes his material without collaborators. One of the DJs commented that Deez wrote songs with heart while Dr. Luke and Max Martin wrote songs with computers. It was a nice compliment. Or a subtle dig. Hard to tell. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
From the first moment I heard “Teenage Dirtbag,” upon its release in 2000, it felt like it was everywhere. Hearing it rattle the walls as it emanated from the massive sound system at Virgin Megastore in Times Square (where I was working back then) would always trigger the same two contradictory thoughts: “not again,” followed rapidly by “…I love this “. Tune-wise, it seemed like the hyperactive and insecure younger sibling of Nada Surf’s 1996 sarcastic classic “Popular,” all catchy, candy-coated and gigantically chorus’d. But lyrically, well, that’s where the sonic kinship ended.
Even if you didn’t grow up on Long Island in the ’80s, if you are a true-crime aficionado of a certain age (a horrific classification but here we are), you are likely to be familiar with the case of Ricky Kasso, who murdered Gary Lauwers (both 17) in June of 1984. And if you did grow up there like Wheatus’s Brendan B.Brown (and myself), the whole story is firmly and forever embedded in your psyche, especially if you were a kid or teen at the time. It was both tragic and terrifying.
It wasn’t long before the press found a sensationalistic angle to latch onto regarding the crime and the scapegoating began. When Kasso was arrested for the murder, he was famously photographed wearing an AC/DC shirt replete with a bloody logo and a green cartoon devil. And that little detail, coupled with rumors of the crime being part of a satanic sacrifice ritual, provided all the ammunition needed for those in authority–i.e. parents, teachers and police–to go into irrational overdrive. As naively fantastical as sounds, from that point on, if you actively listened to metal, if you wore tees featuring the bands you loved like Iron Maiden or Black Sabbath, you were heretofore regarded as one of the devil’s loyal soldiers. While this mistrust of metalheads was patently ridiculous, an absurd piece of residual damage based on a single news photo, it really happened. And it was this very notion that led Brendan B. Brown to pen “Teenage Dirtbag”.
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