The Best Cover Songs of 2013

 Posted by at 11:00 am  8 Responses »
Dec 192013
 

I’m not sure there were more great cover songs this year than any other. But there were more good ones.

What I mean by that is, the average quality of the covers we come across in the time we’ve been around has risen, rather dramatically. Whether they’re iTunes homepage singles or some guy emailing us his Bandcamp, more cover songs in 2013 avoid the old pitfalls than ever before. They don’t sound like they were recorded in a cereal box, substitute ear-bleeding volume for actual creativity, or – the worst cover sin of all – try to carbon-copying the original. With the ease of production and distribution available now, artists seemed to record covers only when they felt they had something to add, and do a halfway decent job committing those ideas to 1s and 0s. Continue reading »

Jordan Corey Is Dreamin’ of a “White Christmas”

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Dec 172013
 

Jordan Corey is no stranger to Cover Me. The singer/songwriter has been on our radar since the inception of our On The ‘Tube feature and has been on a roll ever since. Corey has never produced a holiday cover song before, deeming the classics “so perfect and almost untouchable,” but when an old high school friend asked if she would shoot a video for his Dad’s tree farm, she couldn’t resist and churned out this stunning rendition of “White Christmas.” Continue reading »

They Say It’s Your Birthday: Tom Verlaine

 Posted by at 5:00 pm  4 Responses »
Dec 132013
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Today, Tom Verlaine celebrates the day his parents named him Tom Miller. But we, the music nerdery, celebrate it as the birth of the man who (legend has it) opened CBGB’s doors to what would become punk when he talked Hilly Kristal into letting his band Television play. Though not quite a household name, Television is indisputably seminal. More punk in attitude than sound, Television began life as the Neon Boys, with Verlaine and Richard Hell as the leading lights. In time, the Neon Boys transformed into Television, adding Richard Lloyd to the mix on rhythm guitar. With tangoing guitars, they took downtown NYC by storm. Television recorded disappointing (to Verlaine) but intriguing demos with Brian Eno, Hell left the group, and then, finally, they produced the album that would solidify their legend, Marquee Moon. The band broke up soon after their follow up, Adventure, and Verlaine launched his solo career.

Television has reunited intermittently over the years, releasing an album of new material in 1992 and irregularly touring during the aughts – most recently, anointing the new Rough Trade store in Brooklyn with a performance (sans Lloyd, who quit years ago). For three decades, covering Television songs has been a right of passage for a certain stock of rockers, which should shock no one considering the awe in which many guitarists hold Verlaine and Lloyd’s fretwork. Here are five covers for the man who fell into the arms of Venus de Milo.
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The Best Cover Albums of 2013

 Posted by at 11:00 am  3 Responses »
Dec 132013
 

Fifty years ago, a covers album wasn’t called a “covers album.” It was called an album. Full stop.

Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Billie Holiday – most albums anyone bought were “covers albums” as we’d think of them today, but that’s not how folks thought of them then. Once the public began putting a premium on singers writing their own songs in the ’60s the concept of course shifted, so that an artist doing a covers album has to be like Michael Jordan playing baseball – an okay diversion but let’s get back to the main event please.

More so this year than ever before though, that pendulum seems to be swinging back in small but meaningful ways to what an album originally meant. More and more artists are releasing LPs saying, this is not my new quote-on-quote “covers album,” this is my new album (that happens to consist of covers). The attitude showcases a confidence and surety of purpose that shows they take performing other peoples songs every bit as seriously as they do their own.

That holds true for both of our top two covers albums this year, and plenty more sprinkled throughout. Which isn’t to knock anyone doing a covers album as a lark, novelty, tribute, or side project – you’ll see plenty of those here as well – but any blurred lines that put a “covers album” on the same level as a “normal” album have to be a good thing.

Start our countdown on Page 2…

Review: Billie Joe Armstrong & Norah Jones, ‘Foreverly’

 Posted by at 5:00 pm  1 Response »
Dec 112013
 

In a sense, this is only an Everly Brothers cover album because the Everlys got to the songs first. Released 55 years ago, Songs Our Daddy Taught Us was comprised of just that, Everly Brother renditions of classics and standards. Billie Joe Armstrong, having fond memories of said album, decided to pay tribute to it, and he invited Norah Jones to join him. “Of course; what an obvious pairing,” said nobody.

The resulting album, punningly titled Foreverly, is a song-by-song (in a slightly modified order) rerecording of the Everlys’ classic album, and a potential introduction of the Everly Brothers to a whole new audience. There’s also the possibility that it introduces a whole new audience to Norah Jones. Or Billie Joe Armstrong. Who knows, but there’s a good chance that the number of people who are big fans of all three are few and far between (and likely thrilled).
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MS MR Get Nostalgic with LCD Soundsystem’s “Dance Yrslf Clean”

 Posted by at 3:00 pm  1 Response »
Dec 112013
 

OK, so it may have only been two years ago that James Murphy last played (and streamed live) as LCD Soundsystem in Madison Square Garden, but there is still a small little hole in our hearts that can only be filled by Mr. Murphy…or at least an amazing cover of one of his songs. MS MR have been performing an awesome live rendition of “Dance Yrslf Clean” and here we have a polished studio version, complete with some bumpin’ sax. Continue reading »

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