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Nov 012023
 

In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!

’70s AM radio soundtracked nearly every childhood car journey I ever took. It was in the backseat confines of my Mom’s white Chevy Nova with the sunflower painted on the side (those ’70s were swingin’) that I first became acquainted with The Spinners’ 1975 hit “They Just Can’t Stop It (The Games People Play)”. It was love at first listen. The song ended up marking an important personal milestone for me; it was the first 7-inch I ever bought with my own pocket money (one dollar, and seven cents to be precise). It was purchased at a local record haunt/head shop called “The Etc Shop” (now that’s what I call ’70s) from its cool lady proprietress, Naomi. I played the 45 over and over in my blue shag-carpeted bedroom, mimicking every one of the song’s vast array of vocal inflections. From Bobby Smith’s smooth lead to the spare but crucial contributions of bass singer Pervis Jackson (whose voice was as deep as the earth’s core), I sang along and “got down” as hard as a 9-year-old white suburban soul-loving gal possibly could. Continue reading »

Oct 272023
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

Velvet Underground and Nico

On October 27, 2013, ten years ago today, Lou Reed died. I happened to be in New York City at the time, and his passing was a lead story on the 11 o’clock news. It was as though a part of the city itself had died. Which, inescapably, it had. Reed embodied NYC, from its seedy back rooms to its secret heart, in a way few other people, let alone musicians, ever did.

While Reed’s solo career is highly and deservingly accoladed, it still got overshadowed by the Velvet Underground. Reed’s first band featured Welsh musician John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Maureen Tucker, with Nico singing on the first album and Doug Yule replacing Cale in 1968. The band’s four studio albums started ripples that turned into tsunamis; they went from secret-handshake status to Hall of Fame giants, their influence right up there with the Beatles.

We’re honoring Lou and Company with this collection of covers. Some covers couldn’t hold a candle to the original (you’ll find no “Heroin” here), but many of the originals were receptive to another artist’s distinctive stamp. Whether you prefer the first or what followed, you’ll hear the sound of immortality as it opens yet another path of discovery.

–Patrick Robbins, Features Editor

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May 082023
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

best covers of 1960s

Last week we kicked off our new One Hit Wonders series with ten covers of big 1950s hits, and today we continue it with 20 covers of 1960s smashes.

Some classic songs getting covered in here, in some cases by artists that should have had many more hits just as big. So it goes in pop music. We’ll probably never be able to do a The 40 Best Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs Covers Ever list, though, so we celebrate them here with a few fun reimaginings of their early 1960 chart-topper “Stay.” Continue reading »

Mar 102023
 

Rarely Covered looks at who’s mining the darkest, dustiest corners of iconic catalogs.

So it’s early 1963 and you’re a British pop act in need of a new hit record. Maybe you’ve recorded a Goffin and King number already, and you’ve noted that the Shadows and their guitar instrumentals are on the wane. Maybe you want to tap into the new craze for beat music sweeping the ballrooms, clubs, and town halls of the nation, that melodic hybrid of rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and skiffle. Or maybe you’re established in a beat group and just want to keep serving up those driving rhythms the best way you can.

So what do you do? Well, you might cover a song by a besuited Liverpool fourpiece enjoying huge chart success and popularity off the back of a distinctive self-penned number called “Please Please Me.” Especially if the guy who manages them, Brian Epstein, also manages you, and/or you’re traveling up and down the country with them on a tour bus. You can keep your hands off “I Saw Her Standing There,” though. That’s promised to someone.

Jump to early 2023, and, assuming you did make a deal with the Liverpool group, you’ve made history as one of the first artists ever to have covered the Beatles. Before “I Want To Hold Your Hand” happened, and before the big guns like Joe Cocker got involved, along with Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and, of course, Alvin and the Chipmunks. The fact is you’ve covered a song that only about 23 other artists have ever covered, as opposed to, say, 573. Plus you did it in the historic initial year of Beatlemania!

Continue reading »

Nov 042022
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

dolly parton covers

Dolly Parton is a singer and a songwriter. I mention that obvious truth because these days it tends to get overshadowed by her other titles: Icon. Inspiration. National Treasure. The Only Human Being Alive Everyone Agrees On (Radiolab produced an entire nine-part radio series based on that premise). And she is all those things, but first and foremost she’s a working 9-to-5 musician who has been perfecting her craft for seven decades.

Parton says she wrote her first song as a five year-old in 1952. She hasn’t stopped writing songs since. She once estimated she’s amassed 10,000. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the verifiable numbers speak for themselves: 52 studio albums, 25 Number One songs, 100 million records sold worldwide. Just as important a tribute to her gifts, though, are how often her songs get covered. Not just the obvious ones, the “Jolene”s and “I Will Always Love You”s (though plenty of those, lord knows), but the album cuts, the singles that didn’t top the charts, and the songs she didn’t write herself but made into Dolly Parton songs anyway.

Some of the below covers sound a little bit like Dolly’s own music. Most do not. She considers herself straight country, not, as she made clear when first nominated for the Rock Hall earlier this year, rock and roll. But, in this list, she is rock and roll. And folk and pop and hip-hop and soul and a whole host of other genres. Dolly Parton may indeed be the only human being everyone agrees on. What a way to make a living.

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May 132022
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

stevie wonder covers

For some artists we look at for these lists, it seems like every time someone covered one their songs, it turned out pretty good. Leonard Cohen was like that; the quality of the average Cohen cover is fairly high. John Prine, too.

Stevie Wonder is not one of those artists.

It’s not his fault, or the fault of his songs, but his material often gets sucked into the same cocktail-jazz muck that fellow piano man Billy Joel’s does. Nothing wrong with that sort of lounge jazz-pop when done well – and there are a few times on this list when it is – but there’s a lot of mediocrity to wade through. Stevie’s performance and production skills are so sharp that, when placed in lesser hands, his songs can come off as sentimental shlock. All the “Isn’t She Lovely”s alone are so sugary sweet you feel like you’ll get diabetes.

But here’s the good news: Covers of Stevie Wonder’s songs are so ubiquitous that, even when you weed out the bad and the just-okay, you’re still left with plenty of greatness. The fifty below span funk, bluegrass, rock, hip-hop, jam band, jazz, and into galaxies beyond. So here they are, signed, sealed, and delivered to knock you off your feet.

P.S. Join our Patreon to get this entire list – and every other Best Covers Ever – in playlist and MP3 formats!

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