Oct 162023
 
seal steppin out

Seal was one of the most successful singer-songwriters of the ’90s and continues to produce new work and has a tour planned for 2024. For his latest single, working with old friend and producer Trevor Horn, he has reworked an iconic track from the ’80s: Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out.” Continue reading »

Feb 032023
 

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

See No Evil Television covers

January 2023 was not a good month for guitar heroes. Not three weeks after Jeff Beck passed away, Tom Verlaine followed him to the great gig in the sky. Both were hailed from all corners of the music world and valued for their contributions to their instrument. Verlaine had one advantage to music fans’ hearts that Beck didn’t – he was the front man for Television, writing the band’s songs and singing them with a voice of strangled urgency.

Millions of people listened to Television’s Marquee Moon this week, whether in memoriam or to find out what all the fuss was about. The opening track, “See No Evil,” was a thrilling introduction to one of the era’s greatest albums. It saw great interplay with guitarist Richard Lloyd (that’s Lloyd doing the solo), and bassist Fred Smith and drummer Billy Ficca held down a solid rhythm that allowed Verlaine and Lloyd the chances to drive, lift, and soar.

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Feb 282022
 
best cover songs
Blacktop Mojo – My Girl (The Temptations cover)

You may listen to the gentle plucking when this begins and thing, boy that’s not what I expected from that band photo. Is this an acoustic flying V? Blacktop Mojo’s “My Girl” stays pretty and meditative for over half the run time, turning the oldies classic into a pretty folk-rock ballad. Eventually, though, true to that long-hair-and-leather image, the heads start banging and axes start shredding. Continue reading »

Oct 082021
 

I was obsessed with the thrash metal band Anthrax in the late ‘80s. After repeatedly seeing their videos on MTV, I purchased several of their albums and even saw them headline the Headbangers Ball Tour in 1989.

Around that time, I remember having a heated dinner-time discussion with my brother about Anthrax’s long-term musical prospects. “They won’t be around in five years,” my brother declared. I was more confident in the band’s sustainability, but even I couldn’t have predicted that thirty-two years later the group would be celebrating its 40th anniversary. I doubt even they could have imagined such longevity. Metal still rules, apparently.

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Jun 112021
 
german cover songs

We’re not generally in the practice of publishing reader mail at Cover Me (doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate getting it!). There’s no Letters to the Editor page like you’d see in an old magazine. The comments section and social media serve that function well enough. But today, we’re making an exception.

Last summer, a German reader named Karsten Schroeder wrote in offering to share some cool covers he liked by German bands. We said sure – we’re always looking to discover new stuff, after all. We didn’t hear much after that and, to be honest, forgot about it. Then, a full ten months later, he emailed an exhaustive look at the covers scene in Germany. Across 123 songs, Karsten explored covers spanning punk – his favorite genre – to hip-hop, folk to pop to a few genres that are Germany-specific (“Fun-Punk,” “Deutschrock”). It was so rich and detailed, full of amazing covers that we – and, I expect, you – had never heard before that we asked him if we could publish it. Continue reading »

Feb 212020
 

Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.

Strange Little Girls

Wham, Steely Dan, Bette Midler, Bill Withers, Rihanna, Led Zeppelin, Madonna, Eagles, the Stones – Tori Amos has covered ’em all, and anyone and everyone left in between. (OK, maybe except maybe boybands – it wouldn’t surprise me if she tackled, say, “Back For Good” at least somewhere live, but I couldn’t find it in the pages and pages and pages of YouTube Tori Covers links.) Not necessarily successfully every time, it’s true, but always challengingly and usually well worth the ride.

Despite this evident love for the songs of others, Amos has officially issued only the one covers project, such is her own prolific muse, with well over a dozen discs of her own. (There’s also Midwinter Graces, a festive album with several traditional songs, and Night of Hunters, reimagining several classical pieces of inspiration to her over her years, but they don’t really count as cover albums.) Strange Little Girls, which came out in 2001, had a specific intent. Rather than a outpouring of personal favorites, this was a procession of songs delineating a masculine view of the world. By men and about men. With Amos’s acknowledged feminist opinions and activism, this was a deliberate stance, with the aim of subverting them and offering a female perspective thereto.
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