Jul 032019
 

Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

With its distinctive mandolin intro, “Losing My Relgion” is arguably R.E.M.’s most instantly recognizable song, certainly the most recognizable ahead of needing the never-more-idiosyncratic vocal of Michael Stipe to nail the ID-ing. It’s also their most successful, marking the band’s only visit into the hallowed Top Five of Billboard‘s Hot 100. My only disappointment with the song is that I find I cannot frame a Five Good Covers piece around it.

Oh, it has certainly been covered enough – upward of 77 chronicled in the covers bible, Second Hand Songs – but sadly, tragically even, most are poor anodyne recreations of the original, to my mind lacking the charisma and charm that make the original by these four Athenians such an iconic piece of work. And then there are a few that try to imbue a whole different ambience, failing pyrrhically in the process. (Yes, that’s you, Rozalla.) Throat singing death metal, anyone? Gregorian chant?

But here are three that take some liberties, yet manage to add rather than subtract from the joy inherent in the melody.
Continue reading »

Mar 232011
 

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


It began as something of a lark. R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck had just purchased a mandolin and was trying to figure out how to play it. Out of those early practice sessions, which Buck recorded just in case, sprung arguably the most recognizable mandolin riff of all time, as well as R.E.M.’s largest commercial success to date. Though earlier singles like “The One I Love” and “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” teased at broadening the Athens, GA group’s fan base beyond its original college rock crowd, “Losing My Religion” made the group a national name via copious exposure on pop/rock radio. Continue reading »