Jun 182021
 

In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!

Shawn Colvin covers

We shine the spotlight on an artist who has won acclaim for her own songwriting—including a song of the year and record of the year Grammy—but who has been overlooked as an interpretive artist. Cover Me readers, let’s show Shawn Colvin some love. She has released not one but four albums of covers (if you count the Holiday song collection and the collection of children’s lullabies). And those are just the start: we can also look at covers she has inserted onto albums otherwise devoted to her own material, and listen to her guest appearances on other artists’ cover projects.
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Apr 232020
 
live from home covers

Every week the names doing these covers from home just get bigger. This past week got a boost from Global Citizen’s all-star charity event, from which several of today’s set come, as well as one major appearance in last night’s Jersey for Jersey fundraiser (Fountains of Wayne’s heartbreaking “Hackensack” from that is worth watching too, though, except for guest bassist Sharon Van Etten, it’s not a cover).

But, amidst the all-stars, musicians at every level continue to take to the internet to perform covers. We’ve got some of the best we’ve seen below. As always, we make no claims to being comprehensive, so share any other favorites in the comments. Continue reading »

Aug 112019
 

Karine Polwart is a not a folk singer. Yes, she performs, arguably, in the folk tradition, but by and large, she sings her own material, covering weighty topics such as sex trafficking and depression, somehow contriving an upbeat mood to these often gloomy subjects. Fiercely intelligent, she is fit to stand alongside other Scottish songwriters, such as Dick Gaughan and Michael Marra. Apart from her own material, it has been from the canon of trad.arr. that she has drawn most inspiration, as well as a hefty number of the songs of Rabbie Burns. So I would say that Polwart’s new album Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook has come as a bit of a surprise to most. And it is the modern Scottish songbook she applies herself to, not broadsheets and bothy ballads. Indeed, apart from John Martyn’s 1973 song “Don’t Want to Know,” the earliest song on the album, Songbook draws nothing from any conspicuously folkie background. The catholic selection ranges through the Waterboys and the Blue Nile to current electro-poppers Chvrches and the eccentric oddball poet Ivor Cutler. No Rod Stewart, some may be pleased to recognize.
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Mar 052018
 
lucius covers

For many, the starting point for a good cover is the quality of the original song itself. And, Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line” teaches a masterclass in how to write a killer pop song. Released in the summer of 1978 and included on Rafferty’s first post-Stealer’s Wheel release Baker Street , the song reached number 12 on the Billboard chart and was generally considered to be the less-cool younger brother to the massive hit that was the title track.

In my opinion, there have only been a few covers of the song worthy of consideration, most notably the Bonnie Raitt version of the song on Slipstream. The relative paucity of great versions only makes Lucius’s new acoustic rendition of the tune on their latest release, NUDES, all the more special. The Brooklyn duo is no stranger to highly eclectic cover songs having included Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” on the deluxe edition of their 2017 release Good Grief, and crooned their way through “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” on their freshman release, Wildewoman. Continue reading »

Jul 012014
 

Holy Shits! I’ll hope you’ll pardon my French y’all, for this was just the name the Foo Fighters recently gave themselves when returning to the stage after a recent gig in Delaware. For their encore performance they thought they would do something different and perform as a bar band (and introduced themselves under the aforementioned name) bashing out some rock classics. Continue reading »

Aug 142013
 

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.

Are you looking to discover a dream-poppy, trip-hoppy kind of singer? Do you want to learn about someone who invests her emotions in electronica? Have you been waiting far too long for the chance to learn about a singer-songwriter who can’t help but obliterate the way you think about famous songs with her covers? Boy, have we got an artist for you, and her name is Mimi Page.
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