It’s been 15 years since the last Al Green album. Does “Perfect Day” signal the beginning of his comeback? Unclear — I thought so after his last single, another cover, and that was five years ago. But we can hope. “I loved Lou’s original ‘Perfect Day’—the song immediately puts you in a good mood,” Green explained. “We wanted to preserve that spirit, while adding our own sauce and style.” Continue reading »
The woozy harmonica and acoustic guitar that opens JF Robitaille & Lail Arad’s new release sounds like you’re about to hear an old Woody Guthrie tune. But it turns out to be a cover of The Pretenders’ not-at-all-acoustic 1994 hit “I’ll Stand By You,” out today on new LA-based covers label Vault of Heaven. Robitaille and Arad, who split their time between London and Montreal, beautifully harmonize on the ’90s power ballad like a Sonny and Cher tune. Continue reading »
You’re going to notice a theme here. We have the usual grab-bag included below (see “Best of the Rest”), but, for our featured covers up top, it’s all Sinéad. There were so many wonderful tributes performed, often in concert and always powerful and moving. Many did “Nothing Compares 2 U,” technically a Prince cover but really a Sinéad song now and forever, but others selected from elsewhere in her catalog. Of this one, which just came out Tuesday, Amanda Palmer wrote, “This song means a great deal to me, as does the artist who penned it, along with everything she still stands for.” A portion of the money from sales will be donated to The Irish Women’s Survivor Support Network. Continue reading »
There are deep cuts, and then there are deep cuts. Sure, if you’re gonna pick a Bruce Springsteen song, “Wages of Sin” is a lot less obvious than “Glory Days.” But “Wages of Sin” is practically a greatest hit compared to the tune Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Cole Gallagher dug up. It’s called “Sugarland.” A press release claims this is the first-ever cover of the tune—not many Springsteen songs you could say that about—and I can’t find much to disprove it. Well, aside from an 11-year old YouTube video with 188 views, but the release does say this is the first “official” cover. Certainly the only cover, or the only version period, you can stream on Spotify. Continue reading »
Bob Dylan has been on a covers roll this year. On tour, he has primarily covered a number of Dead (“Truckin’,” “Stella Blue,” “Brokedown Palace”) or Dead-associated (“Not Fade Away,” “Only a River”) songs. But he’s dipped into other classic catalogs occasionally too. He did Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” for the first time and then, not long after, maybe the deepest cut yet: Merle Haggard’s 2016 track “Bad Actor.” The tape took a while to surface. It was worth the wait. Continue reading »
In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.
When we do our monthly Best Covers Ever countdowns, paying tribute to different versions of a given artist’s songs, it’s fun to surprise people with something unexpected. But a couple months ago, when we counted down covers of Prince, it was only ever a race for number two. The best cover of Prince is, in this case, also the most famous. Most famous for a reason. I’m talking, of course, about Sinead O’Connor singing “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Here’s a bit of Seuras Og’s writeup from that list:
“Arguably a pretty slim item in the hands of its composer, O’Connor gave it a remarkable polish, inhabiting the lyric and bleeding out the meaning. OK, she had, and still has, the vocal chops to squeeze emotion into and out of almost anything, and this song is a masterclass in voice control, of volume and microphone technique. The video, especially as she sheds unprompted tears, clearly adds to the overall heft, but even without that visual, still the power is immense. Completeness also insists on showing how timeless her ownership of the song has been, with a live performance or two, decades apart, each as striking, in different ways, as the other.”
But Sinead O’Connor had a lot more to offer than just her one big hit—and that’s even just limiting ourselves to the covers world. Sure, she topped our Best Prince Covers list, but she also appeared on our Best Elton John Covers list, our Best ABBA Covers list, our Best Dolly Parton Covers list, our Best Nirvana Covers list. How’s that for range?
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