Riley Haas

Riley is a digital marketing trainer and strategist in Toronto. He obsessively writes and talks about music and once had a classic rock radio show in university. His favourite cover of all time is Uncle Tupelo's version of the Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog." He's also a movie fan, having seen approximately 4,400 films. You can follow him on Twitter @riley_haas.

Sep 162024
 
mad/no/mad

Though it was released a decade and a half into his career, “Addicted to Love” is Robert Palmer‘s most iconic song. It is also, unsurprisingly, his most covered song with basically twice as many covers as his next most popular. Of course, so much of the popularity of the song comes from the famous music video.

Barry Gottlieb, known as Mad Dog on the internet, is a humorist and novelties producer who has been active in music on and off over the decades, briefly performing in some new wave bands in his native Richmond in the early 1980s, for example. mad/no/mad is his latest music project, with the first album composed almost entirely of cover songs of hits from the 1970s and ’80s. Continue reading »

Aug 222024
 
IAN SWEET

“Seventeen” is a single from Sharon Van Etten‘s fifth album, 2019’s Remind Me Tomorrow. It got a fair amount of attention when it was released, including a performance on The Late Show with Norah Jones guesting. A song about looking back on the titular age, either through memory or through seeing a teenager who reminds her of herself, it’s a melancholic lyric that is rendered more intensely through the original performance by Van Etten and her band.

For season of AV Undercover, their first in seven years, indie rock artist IAN SWEET, Jilian Medford’s alter ego, was one of the invitees. Medford is a big fan of Van Etten, apparently, and jumped when she saw the song on the list.
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Aug 222024
 
flipturn

For the new AppleTV+ series Bad Monkey, set in Tom Petty‘s home state of Florida, a bunch of different bands and artists were recruited to cover his songs for the soundtrack. One of the less famous bands on the list is Florida’s own flipturn, indie rockers who have been putting out music since 2017. They haven’t chosen the most obscure song on the soundtrack by any means, but it’s not one of the most obvious covers on there.
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Aug 082024
 
Bryan Ferry

Former Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry covers Dylan a lot. His first ever solo single was a Bob Dylan cover. Nearly 35 years later, he released an album of just Dylan covers. Now he’s releasing a 50 year retrospective box-set of his solo career and, fittingly, he’s included a new cover of an old Bob Dylan song.
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Aug 012024
 
Atreyu

The supergroup Audioslave is not a popular band to cover compared to the bands their members began in, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. Some of that owes to the relative lack of material from Audioslave’s brief career, but some of it likely stems from how uncool Audioslave felt in comparison to those other bands back when they debuted.

Atreyu are an American metalcore band who have put out 9 albums over the last 20 years. This fall they will release The Pronoia Sessions, an album of eight re-recorded tracks, and they’ve added two covers to go along with it. One of those is a cover of Audioslave’s far and away biggest hit, and most covered song, “Like a Stone.” But there’s a twist.
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Jul 242024
 
stephen wilson jr something in the way cover

For a deep cut, Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” is a popular cover selection – it’s their seventh most popular ever. That’s likely because of its nature as a ballad, it’s a little more accessible. And it’s better known than so many deep cuts, featuring both on Nirvana’s biggest record and also on their MTV Unplugged.

Former AutoVaughn lead guitarist Stephen Wilson Jr. has been writing songs for Nashville for more of the last decade. Recently he’s started a career as a solo artist, releasing both his debut EP and LP last year. He performs country that is more than a little influenced by alternative and indie rock. (He’s also married to Sixpence None the Richer singer Leigh Nash, if you’re interested.) Continue reading »