They Say It’s Your Birthday: Patrick Robbins

 Posted by at 9:00 am  3 Responses »
Feb 192021
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday  celebrates an artist’s special day with covers of his or her songs. Let someone else do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

birthday

Hi, I’m Patrick Robbins, the features editor here at Cover Me, and today’s my birthday. Please forgive the self-indulgence of a one-year-older guy for putting up a post that’s about me.

2021 is kind of a big year for me. Not only am I having one of those milestone birthdays – you know, one of those ones that ends in a zero – I’m also having a milestone anniversary. This year marks ten years since I joined the Cover Me staff. In all that time, I’ve gotten off a few good lines here and there (my favorite: a song had “more hooks than Moulty’s closet”), but far more importantly, I’ve found some great covers that I never would have discovered if I hadn’t been looking for them to share and talk about here.

So, as a little birthday present from me to you, I thought I’d pick out some of my favorite discoveries I’ve made over the years. What follows are some of my all-time favorite covers that I found specifically for Cover Me posts (as opposed to covers I already knew about), and links to the pieces in which I originally wrote about them. There’s a lot of songs here, but they’re only about one percent of the songs I’ve written about. So think of these as the cream of my cover crop.

Thanks to all of you for reading Cover Me – without you, this post wouldn’t exist – and here’s to many more birthdays and anniversaries to come.

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The Best Cover Songs of 1996

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  10 Responses »
Sep 302016
 
Fugees

They say nostalgia works in 20-year cycles, and this year the music of 1996 has been in the media a lot. And if you believe the music blogs, it turns out 1996 was a truly groundbreaking year for every possible genre. Over at SPIN: “The 96 Best Alternative Rock Songs Of 1996.” Complex: “Best Rap Songs of 1996.” Junkee: “Ten reasons 1996 was a great year for dance music”. Loudwire: “10 Best Metal Albums of 1996.” Red Bull Music: “1996: Why it was a great year for pop”. Suck it, 1995! (Kidding; similar articles were of course written last year too.)

We’ll be honest: 1996 was not some magical, pioneering year for cover songs. It was also not a terrible year. It was just, you know, another year. There’s no overarching theorem of 1996’s cover songs that wasn’t true in ’95 or ’97. But even so, Cover Me wasn’t around in 1996, so we never made a Best Cover Songs of 1996 list (our first year-end list came in 2009, with the Kings of Convenience’s “It’s My Party” topping it, and you can catch up on all the lists here). So we decided, before the year ends and we take our look at the best covers songs this year, why not take a nostalgic rewind and do 1996 just for fun, twenty years too late. Continue reading »

In The Spotlight: Ween

 Posted by at 5:00 pm  2 Responses »
Feb 122016
 

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!

ween

Ween caters to no one. When it comes to creating music, they don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you believe in, or what offends you. Ween’s goals are clear: they are going to make the music they want to make and have an absolute blast in the process. As a result of this approach, we all reap the tremendous benefits.

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Five Good Covers: Three Is A Magic Number (Schoolhouse Rock)

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Jan 242014
 

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

Between Superfriends and Scooby-Do, Schoolhouse Rock taught ’70s children their parts of speech, times tables, historical events, and more. Those lessons were set to catchy tunes that stuck like flypaper in a honey jar, still well known today to people who saw them forty years ago. The most memorable of the word-based songs was probably “Conjunction Junction,” while “I’m Just a Bill” takes the prize for the history set. When it comes to numbers, it’s hard to debate that any Schoolhouse Rock song has had a more lasting influence than “Three Is A Magic Number.”
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In the Spotlight: Daniel Johnston

 Posted by at 5:00 pm  1 Response »
Apr 132011
 

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!

You might know Daniel Johnston from Kurt Cobain's t-shirt, his iconic mural in Austin or the many artists who have covered him.  Or it's quite possible you've never heard of him. I had the pleasure of  learning about Johnston during a panel at SXSW last month that featured his brother, manager, and others who have worked with him over the years. Emotions ran high as they discussed Johnston's eccentric artistic habits, as well as how his personality was altered by bipolar disorder and how that affected his career as an artist. Continue reading »

Song of the Day: Blind Melon, “Three Is a Magic Number” (Schoolhouse Rock)

 Posted by at 9:30 am  1 Response »
Oct 292010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Happy birthday Cover Me! Today marks three years since we began and we’ve got a full day of celebrations planned. We’ve got stuff to give away, Full Album posts to offer, and a very special surprise to top things off this afternoon. We’ll start things off with today’s special number: Three!

This one’s off the terrific Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks tribute album. It features such off-the-wall picks as Daniel Johnston covering “Unpack Your Adjectives,” Ween telling us about “The Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” and Biz Markie rocking “The Energy Blues.” Continue reading »