“South of Heaven” is the title track of thrash metal legends Slayer‘s fourth album, an album where they infamously abandoned their notoriously fast sound for something slower but still very heavy. No matter how slow South of Heaven was in comparison to the previous album, the legendary Reign in Blood, it was still recognizably thrash metal. And thrash metal – most metal, really – is a far cry from folk.
But LA singer-songwriter Shannon Lay doesn’t think so. For her recent appearance on Office Hours Live with Tim Heidecker she performed “South of Heaven” nearly solo with just her voice and acoustic guitar and two accompanists, one on standup bass and one on quiet electric guitar.Continue reading »
Back in 2025, a bunch of famous and less famous artists got together to record a tribute album for Neil Young for his late ex-wife Pegi’s Bridge School. The school’s mission is to “ensure that individuals with extensive speech and physical disabilities achieve full participation in their communities.” (Their son Ben has cerebral palsy.) Up through 2016, the school was supported in part by the annual Bridge School Benefit Concert. However, the concerts have ended so these tribute albums are a result. We reviewed volume one when it was released.Continue reading »
“Changes” is the rare Black Sabbath piano ballad, basically unique in their catalogue as of its original release on Vol. 4. It was only performed by three of the four members and Tony Iommi doesn’t even play guitar on it. It’s so distinct a song for them, so much more accessible, that it later became the theme song to a TV show, albeit as a cover, something that would have seemed pretty close to impossible for any other Sabbath song as of 1972.
The typical cover sticks to the piano of the original. Jay Buchanan, lead singer of California blues rockers Rival Sons, has taken another approach. He’s been performing the song live occasionally, with just his voice and guitar, a slow, stately version. Now he’s released a studio version with some accompaniment.Continue reading »
The best-selling single in the UK in 2006, and a regular on Greatest Songs of All Time lists, Gnarls Barkley‘s “Crazy” is not just their most iconic song, it’s one of the biggest songs of the aughts. (It’s so popular compared to all their other songs it has something like fifty times as many streams as their next most popular song.) But so much of what makes the song iconic is tied up in CeeLo Green’s vocal performance and Danger Mouse’s production. What happens when all that goes away?Continue reading »
In 1985, Eddie Murphy could do no wrong. 48 Hrs., Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop were all hits. (Beverly Hills Cop was the highest grossing movie of 1984.) He had recently completed a four-year run on SNL that people believe kept the show from dying. Delirious was the biggest standup special of the decade. So he decided to go into music.
That’s right. Eddie Murphy made an album. That album produced what became a notorious song, “Party All the Time.” Written and produced by Rick James, Eddie Murphy’s first single actually reached #2 because, again, he could do no wrong. But the album was pilloried by the critics and the song became a joke. It didn’t kill his career – he actually recorded a few more albums – but, despite its commercial success, the song was viewed in the alternative-dominated ’90s as a relic from a decade when people had collectively lost their musical minds. (Or, this could just have been the result of a bet with Richard Pryor.)
Of course, the song was written by Rick James, a man who has written his share of classic songs. So maybe the song isn’t so bad.
And Sturgill Simpson is here to show us the way. Simpson has been playing the song live at shows for over a year. He then recorded it for a special iTunes-only download version of his latest album under his Johnny Blue Skies moniker, Mutiny After Midnight. And now it’s widely available.
Simpson and his band add a reggae beat and play it a bit like a jam band doing a hybrid of reggae and funk. Simpson takes the lyrics entirely seriously, singing with a fair amount of soul. There’s funky guitar, keyboards and horns and they keep the backing vocals from the original. There’s a guitar solo and the band vamps for the coda as a replacement for the Murphy-James duet in the original.
It’s great to hear a major artist take this song seriously and do a good job with it.
Does it surprise you that “Enjoy the Silence” is Depeche Mode‘s highest charting single on the Hot 100? Because it surprises me. Obviously Depeche Mode had way more hits in the UK than in the US. But, being sentient in 1989 when Violator came out, it felt like “Personal Jesus” was the bigger hit. Well, it is their biggest US hit and is also their most covered song by over 100 versions. And it’s their most streamed song. So it’s indisputably their biggest song, no matter what I thought.
This kind of popularity can pose a challenge for musicians who want to cover a song. When a song is so familiar and there are so many cover versions – nearly 300 in this case – it may be hard to come up with a distinct version. Fortunately, French covers institution Nouvelle Vague have a niche and it’s a niche that is pretty unique.Continue reading »
