Aug 312020
 
best cover songs august 2020
Alex Kapranos & Clara Luciani – Summer Wine (Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra cover)

Clara Luciani is Nancy Sinatra and Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos is Lee Hazlewood on this charming cover. Kapranos wrote, “When the lockdown started, we decided to record [‘Summer Wine’] — more for ourselves than anything else. We wanted to create the atmosphere of an imaginary world away from the confinement we were experiencing. Not that we were unhappy, but the imagination is the greatest medium for escape and adventure… After the lockdown eased off, we got together to film the video with our friends Adrien, Leo, Fiona and Hugo. I love the ideas they had, which suit the mood of the song and reflect our… well, our love of karaoke!” Continue reading »

Sep 022015
 

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, from Cover Me staffer Jordan Becker: What’s a cover that made a significant, annoying, and/or unforgivable change to the original lyrics?
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Sep 032013
 

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

The Beatles is its official title, but everyone calls it the White Album, after its minimalist cover design – the group name embossed, a stamped serial number, and nothing else. Less than 18 months removed from Sgt. Pepper, the Beatles were an entirely different band, and the cracks in their base were multiplying too fast for anyone’s comfort. But the songs begun in Rishikesh kept coming, the boys kept playing, and the end result was a great big glorious mess – and that last word is one of the biggest keys to the White Album’s appeal.

The sheer diversity of the White Album makes it an ideal subject for an all-cover compilation. Phish famously covered it live in its entirety; many Beatles tribute bands have done the same. Here on Cover Me, we’ve put together thirty different artists coming at these songs thirty different ways, representing multiple countries and multiple genres. It’ll take four days to get through them all, one for each side of the original vinyl – but if you’re up for it, so are we. Let’s get on that BOAC flight from Miami Beach and see where it takes us…
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Jun 172013
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Today, Eric Boucher turns 55 years old. This might not interest you, unless you know that his stage name is Jello Biafra. Which still might not interest you, unless you like provocative, politically charged hardcore (or need to).
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Dec 212012
 

Adele dominated the cover song landscape in 2011, but Two-Aught-Twelve saw no similar galvanizing figure. Yes Lana Del Rey got covered a lot, but Leonard Cohen and Arcade Fire also seemed to garner an unexpected landslide of great covers (and speaking of landslides, so did Fleetwood Mac). “Call Me Maybe” was a huge hit that didn’t lead to much in the way of classic covers, and few seem to have even bothered attempting the Korean raps on “Gangnam Style.”

Which means that cover songs in 2012 were more diverse, ambitious, and left-field than ever before. A given YouTube search or Hype Machine browse would be as likely to turn up forgotten hits or underappreciated songwriters as it would the latest Top 40 smash. Find a sampling of all the diversity in Cover Me’s official Best Cover Songs of 2012 countdown. Start with #40-31 on the next page, and check back daily as we’ll be adding more til we hit #1.

Mar 062012
 

Last month, Richard McGraw released his Popular Music covers record. His mournful ballads took on all comers, from the Who to Lady Gaga, Leonard Cohen to Eddie Murphy. The only genre not covered: ’80s San Francisco hardcore. He remedies that not-so-glaring omission on a new bonus cover of Dead Kennedys‘ “California Über Alles,” which we’re pleased to premiere below. Continue reading »