Sep 062016
 
eurythmics

Eurythmics haven’t released an album or toured since 1999, but for whatever reason this summer has seen a surge of covers. And not even just more versions of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” but other singles and deeper cuts. It’s probably just coincidence (unless Dave Stewart releasing his memoir earlier this year was a catalyst), but whatever the reason, we’re always happy to get new interpretations of their catchy-but-slightly-odd dance classics.

First up was Iron And Wine’s Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop. Earlier this year, they teamed up for a duets album Love Letter For Fire, and this summer they added an outtake: a cover of “Love Is a Stranger.” If you know even the tiniest thing about Beam or Hoop, it will not surprise you one iota to learn they take the pop song in a radically different direction. Their voices blend beautifully on the delicate acoustic cover. Continue reading »

Dec 192013
 

I’m not sure there were more great cover songs this year than any other. But there were more good ones.

What I mean by that is, the average quality of the covers we come across in the time we’ve been around has risen, rather dramatically. Whether they’re iTunes homepage singles or some guy emailing us his Bandcamp, more cover songs in 2013 avoid the old pitfalls than ever before. They don’t sound like they were recorded in a cereal box, substitute ear-bleeding volume for actual creativity, or – the worst cover sin of all – try to carbon-copying the original. With the ease of production and distribution available now, artists seemed to record covers only when they felt they had something to add, and do a halfway decent job committing those ideas to 1s and 0s. Continue reading »