Dec 072021
 
la roux damaged goods cover

La Roux, the English singer (formerly a duo), is not the first person you’d expect to cover Gang of Four. A synthpop artist, she’s appeared on Cover Me a few times over the last decade. And synthpop did sort of emerge from post-punk. Still, Gang of Four’s sound is so angular and so aggressive it’s not something you really associate with synthpoppers.

“Damaged Goods” was Gang of Four’s first ever single and it does an excellent job of introducing listeners to Gang of Four’s famous fusion of angry British punk and American funk. La Roux’s new cover is a lot less aggressive. The music is peppy, dancey synthpop instead of the staccato bass and guitar opening of the original. And even when it moves into its groove, the original is still edgy. La Roux’s vocals also hide the anger: her voice is a high-pitched croon, in comparison to Jon King’s speak-shouting in the original.

The tenor of La Roux’s cover never really changes, which is why it’s important to watch the music video. A little over halfway through the song, La Roux starts assaulting a microwave with a bat. Apparently it’s Gang of Four’s microwave and their bat. Regardless, it’s the only thing that actually reveals the aggression in the original’s lyrics.

Jul 292020
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

bee gees covers

Despite the fact that Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb have sold upwards of 120 million records, they can sometimes seem oddly underrated. They aren’t regarded with the reverence afforded to other artists that emerged during roughly the same era, like The Rolling Stones or The Who. They haven’t generated the same level of dramatic intrigue as Elton John or Queen. And discovering their music was never part of some traditional teenage rite of passage like Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. But while they don’t seem to receive near the same level of acclaim as the aforementioned artists, their music has remained as utterly ubiquitous as just about all of them. There are few other artists as essential to documenting the sound of an era as The Bee Gees were to the late ’70s.

Throw the Here At Last…Bee Gees… Live album from 1977 on the turntable or queue up the stream. You will be confronted with a veritable assembly line of perfectly constructed, exquisitely performed pop songs. Take a step back and really listen. The outlandish songwriting gift on display is nothing short of mind-blowing, You might think, how is it even possible to have written this many incredible songs? And those are just 20 or so selected tracks Barry, Robin, and Maurice had done up to that point – before Saturday Night Fever! There were dozens more to come.

We were overwhelmed by the number of incredible covers of both Bee Gees classics and deep cuts and their glorious diversity. But we really shouldn’t have been surprised. Despite the band itself not always getting its due, the Bee Gees’ songs remain for everyone and forever.

Hope Silverman

The list begins on Page 2.

Jan 172020
 

Dom Thomas is perhaps best known for his other gig, as founder of acclaimed reissue label Finders Keepers. So no surprise that the songs he selected for his band Whyte Horses’ new covers album dig deep. With a shifting group of collaborators, he covers some real cratedigger picks by groups like Belgian music polymath Plastic Bertrand (“Ca̧ Plane Pour Moi”) and Long Island twin soft-rockers Alessi Brothers (“Seabird”). Continue reading »

Jan 192011
 

The weather may still be a giant grey slushpile outside, but the Coachella lineup just dropped, and you know what that means: time to start thinking about summer music! As always, the annual extravaganza kicks off the fest season, taking advantage of the fact that SoCal can host outdoor shows a bit earlier in the year than can, say, Chicago (Lollapalooza). This year’s lineup features Cover Me favs like Robyn, Mumford & Sons, and the Swell Season. Kanye West headlines the final night – is it too much to ask to hope for a Telephoned collaboration? (answer: yes it is).

In the past, Coachella has inspired heaps of special covers from artists big and small. Below, we look back with five of our favorite Coachella covers. Continue reading »

Sep 062010
 

The twenty-first century has devalued the “song of the summer” concept something fierce. With listeners increasingly fractured into obscure niches, no song unites the culture the way the Beach Boys or Four Seasons did back in the day. Even if you hated those songs, they were a part of your summer experience. After all, loathing counts as an experience.

Speaking of loathing…“California Gurls.” If there was a song that dominated summer 2010, that was it. It’s a simple formula. Katy Perry + singing about chicks = summer smash. That wasn’t the only summer ‘010 hit though. There were the indie summer jams, of which we’ve got a couple, as well as the hits blaring from car radios. Even if you consider yourself above the Top 40, odds are you’ve heard these one way or another: over the supermarket PA, at a minor-league ball game, or from the crappy iPod speakers serenading the couple next to you at the beach. So while these may or may not have defined your personal summer, they come to as close to universal as it gets these days. You can run, you can hide, but you can’t escape these songs.*

*Summer Song ’02 reference. Continue reading »

Aug 302010
 

YouTube is filled with amateur cover “artists.” Most stink. On the ‘Tube extracts the exceptions.

We kick off a new Cover Me series today with Jordan Corey. A U.C. Santa Barbara sociology major, Corey posts cover videos to YouTube just like thousands of other wannabe viral stars. Only one difference: she’s really good. A big-voiced belter, Corey straddles the line between old-school soul and American Idol. Some serious pipes for a skinny white girl.

Accompanied by an old theater buddy on guitar, Corey’s releasing a series of stripped-down home recordings. Her wails and whispers take center stage as she belts tunes from the worlds of pop (Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars), classic rock (Fleetwood Mac, the Beatles), and new soul (Adele, Amy Winehouse). We’ve got three of the best below, including the premiere of her cover of La Roux’s “Bulletproof.” She describes her version as “a little more rustic, a little more raw.” Often on YouTube that translates into “off-key karaoke filmed with a cell phone.” Corey’s a refreshing exception. Continue reading »