Baltimore’s beloved indie-rockers Snail Mail just threw the five-day Valentine Fest in their hometown venut Ottobar. The band’s Lindsey Jordan and co. performed every night with an array of special guests, and invited many of those guests up for one-night-only cover songs.
First up, Soccer Mommy joined the band on the festival’s second night to tackle Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You.” Quiet verses exploded into a sing-along chorus that had the whole crowd belting along. Continue reading »
We’ve posted a million Katy Perry covers over the years. But they all tend to be of songs from that early-2010s window when it seemed Perry couldn’t miss: “California Gurls,” “Teenage Dream, “Firework,” etc (those were all on the same album!). But on her new covers EP Pensive Pop, Amythyst Kiah digs a little deeper. True, “Chained to the Rhythm” isn’t exactly some obscure B-side – it was a single and a modest hit. But for Perry, “modest hit” at that point felt like a flop. While we still get new covers of those Teenage Dream-era hits regularly (VÉRITÉ dropped a good one a few months back), no one is covering “Chained To The Rhythm.” Until now! Continue reading »
Kurt Vile’s new album (watch my moves) features 14 original songs and one surprise cover: Bruce Springsteen’s “Wages Of Sin.” To say this isn’t an oft-covered song is putting it mildly; the only prior version SecondHandSongs lists is the one by Damien Jurado and Rosie Thomas that ranked high on our Best Springsteen Covers Ever list, from the tribute album Badlands – A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. Continue reading »
“Streets of Philadelphia” is one of Bruce Springsteen’s best-known songs since his 1980s ubiquity, even winning him an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1994. But for whatever reason, the man himself doesn’t play it live very much. Since the 1990s, he’s only performed it twice outside the titular city (and even there he often skips it).
Luckily, other artists are filling the void. The past month has seen two terrific covers surface, one by Ryan Adams and the other by Berlin electronic duo Lea Porcelain. While Adams has a tendency to cover less obvious fare – think Danzig or Taylor Swift (for a full album no less) – Springsteen falls squarely in his wheelhouse. So his cover is about what you’d expect from a solo acoustic performance – but few artists put as much emotion into solo acoustic performances as Ryan Adams. Even if he’s not wildly rearranging it, his cover proves powerful in a quiet way. Continue reading »
Last year, in preparing to release his experimental new album 22, A Million, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon held a one-time-only festival/art performance in Berlin. He brought a number of his favorite musicians to hang out and collaborate, performing new music in the round. The festival just posted videos of many of the performances, including a wonderful “Folk Circle” session that features Vernon trading folk songs with Damien Rice, Sam Amidon, Erlend Øye, O, and Ragnar Kjartansson.
Norwegian composer (and half of Kings of Convenience, who released our favorite cover of 2009) Erlend Øye covers The Moore Brothers’ 2004 song “New For You,” followed by our buddy Sam Amidon leading the crowd in a singalong of Appalachian folk song “Johanna The Row-di.” A French singer who goes simply by O sings a traditional French song, Damien Rice breaks the covers theme by playing his own “The Professor & La Fille Danse,” and then we get to the piece de resistance. Vernon plays a song from the man he calls “my favorite songwriter,” John Prine. Continue reading »
Irish singer Ciaran Lavery wears his influences on his sleeves. His last album had a track called “Okkervil River” about hearing that band on the radio, and his new live set features a gorgeous cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia.” His emotive lilt might remind you of his countryman Glen Hansard (himself no stranger to great Bruce covers) and he more than does Springsteen’s tribute to AIDS victims justice.
Despite “Streets of Philadelphia” being arguably one of Springsteen’s best-known songs – certainly from the last few decades at least – the Boss himself doesn’t play it live too much. We’re grateful Lavery and his string quartet stepped in to fill the void with this beautiful version. Listen to it below, along with equally lovely covers of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” from the same album. Continue reading »