Yo La Tengo is known in part for their covers. Heck, their fourth album, Fakebook, was made up mostly of covers. And now here comes Scott Roberts, who is offering up Fake Fakebook, an album featuring a huge chunk of Roberts covering Fakebook. The album features, as Roberts notes, 63% of Fakebook, including covers of Cat Stevens, John Cale and Daniel Johnston among others. Roberts did not cover any of the Yo La Tengo originals on the record.
There’s something cool about any project that is undertaken just because of the love of a particular artist and covering the whole album (well, 63%) is a nice touch.
In his Bandcamp release of the record, Roberts wrote “Simply stated, “Fakebook” is one of my favourite albums of all time, and this project was done completely with love and admiration for the original album with no intention of personal, financial, or political gain. I realize that the chance of the band ever hearing this (or even hearing OF it) is pretty slim, so this probably doesn’t need to be said, but I’m saying it anyway (just in case). Peace on.”
Hey, what a wonderful surprise to discover my album “Fake Fakebook” featured here! Thank you so much for finding it and offering a song for people to hear. I do have to say, though, that the accompanying blurb states, “Roberts did not cover any of the Yo La Tengo originals on the record,” which is incorrect. At least 4 of the songs on the album, including “Did I Tell You,” the one featured, are Yo La Tengo songs—so those would just be “covers,” as opposed to “covers of covers” . Understandable mistake; this can get very confusing!