This Week on Bandcamp rounds up our favorite covers to hit the site in the past seven days.
We took a break last week while down in Austin, but today we bring you another installment of what has in just a few weeks become one of our most popular features. As usual, we scoured Bandcamp for the latest and greatest in under-the-radar covers. All are free to download and well worth your time.
Recorded to remember the victims of the tragedy in Japan, Erin Marie Hall’s “Hear You Me” delivers a string-and-emo tearjerker well suited to the occasion.
How does this compare with Cee Lo Green’s cover of the same song, our Best Cover Song of 2010? It doesn’t. Where his went bold and brassy, this cover finds a nice acoustic rhythm and quietly coasts along. The song may be addressed to “you,” but you can tell the singer here is very much alone.
Max and the Wild Things just dropped three new covers under the clunky title Musics We Wish We Wrote Vol. 2: Irish Musics We Wish We Wrote. Along with by-the-numbers takes on U2 and Thin Lizzy, this track makes the Pogues pub singalong a straight-forward guitar rocker.
“I just felt the world needed another laid back ‘Hey Ya’ cover,” the artist posted along with this cover. He has a point, but actually, it has been a while since Matt Wheddle’s acoustic plea became the first (and arguably still best) YouTube cover sensation. It’s Just a Kitten strips it back even more, creating a dirge-like lament that sounds like the singer might break down at any moment.
The electrothumping intro here reminds us of the first few seconds of Ace of Base’s “All That She Wants.” Anyone else? Guess not. Still, the dirty thuds and undermixed vocals suit Kurt Cobain’s angst perfectly.
Check out previous installments here.