Mar 162023
 
sorcha richardson hot fuss

A few months ago, Turntable Kitchen subscribers got a surprise in their mailboxes: An unannounced vinyl record featuring Irish singer-songwriter Sorcha Richardson covering the entirety of The Killers’ beloved debut Hot Fuss. We named it the fifth best covers album of 2022 even though, at the time, there was no way for most people to even hear it.

Now there is. Months after its surprise drop, Richardson’s Hot Fuss has been “officially” announced. It’s still only available to subscribers, but you can sign up at their website to get it. And everyone can also finally hear the opening two tracks, Richardson’s take on “Jenny Was a Friend of Mine” and “Mr Brightside.” Neither sounds anything like the original.

Richardson explains the album’s genesis:

“Hot Fuss was pretty much the first album I considered covering when Turntable Kitchen presented me with the opportunity. I was 13 when it came out and I played it to death in my parents’ car. I wanted to cover an album that I already knew really, really well; one that I had spent many teenage hours strumming and drumming along to, and to see if I could find my own way through it now, all of these years later, from a very different vantage point.

I recorded it over the course of about 2 and a half weeks in Dublin at the end of last year, almost immediately after signing off on the mixes for my album, Smiling Like an Idiot. It was the perfect creative palette cleanser after working so intensely on my album for a year straight, and was also incredibly freeing to suddenly be recording an album of covers, rather than songs I had written. The whole thing is produced by me and the very talented Alex Borwick, (who also plays trombone across the album) and we recorded it between my bedroom and at his studio, just off Pearse Street in Dublin. We leaned into the limitations of our set up and time frame, building drum loops out of phone recordings of €20 notes and the sound of me flipping through pages in books. Most of the time we did one or two vocal takes, pressed save and kept going. The original production on Hot Fuss is often over the top jazz hands and very fabulous, and I wanted to try and make them feel understated and intimate. It was honestly a joy to make, and I’d love to do it all over again tomorrow.”

Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls - hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Learn more at Patreon.

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