Aug 042015
 
ramonesweek

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

ramones_leave_home

The Ramones‘ second album, Leave Home, didn’t have the element of surprise that their first had, but that’s about the only difference between the two. Once again, fourteen songs accounted for a half hour of humor, menace, and sweetness, a surprising combination that worked perfectly well when delivered at full force.

Leave Home was loaded with songs that would become classics, and sounded like nothing else in the musical world – but therein lay the problem. Joey later explained that “we thought since our music was doin’ something unique that everyone would pick up on that. What really happened was we were so alien that no one wanted to touch us. And so we wouldn’t get played.” They would spend the next few years fighting to change that perception, a fight that would eventually drain them of much of their energy.
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May 222015
 

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

dreambabydream

When Bruce Springsteen was touring behind his 2005 album Devils and Dust, he closed his shows with a cover of the song “Dream Baby Dream” by the protopunk band Suicide. Most fans of the Boss were unfamiliar with it, and didn’t know how to take the moody mantra, sung over the drone of a pump organ and an offstage synth – “Glory Days” it ain’t. It turned out Bruce had been a fan of Suicide’s since meeting them in a studio in the ’70s, and had claimed in one interview that “You know, if Elvis came back from the dead I think he would sound like Alan Vega.” As for Vega, once he’d heard Springsteen’s interpretation, he said, “Now I can die…. He interpreted my song, he did it his way, and such a great way that I’m going to have to sing it that way, or not sing it at all anymore…. On my death bed, that’s the last thing I’m going to listen to. I’ll play it at my funeral.” So it’s safe to say he liked it.
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Feb 242012
 

Washington, D.C. has been home to many bands, and it was particularly prominent in the ‘80s and ‘90s for punk and hardcore musicians. But those weren’t the only genres that flourished; a band called Black Tambourine became one of the most influential indie bands to emerge from Washington, D.C. Their sound combined fuzzy feedback with dreamy, ‘60s vocals from singer Pam Berry, creating something that sounded like punks who surf. Unfortunately the band never released an LP before their break-up in the early ‘90s, and members pursued other projects. Continue reading »

Jan 302012
 

Lux’s promotional bio is full of references to your typical ‘90s indie touchstones: Pavement, the Magnetic Fields, Sonic Youth. On their upcoming debut album We Are Not the Same, though, the Seattle duo digs a little deeper into their influences for a cover of Black Tambourine’s “Black Car.” The cover is buried as a hidden bonus track, but we’re happy to bring it to the surface here. Continue reading »