The music app Musura invited emo band Thursday to take part in their “Covers On the Spot” challenge. The guest is played a song and has only a few hours to interpret and record their version in their style. The band deflates hearing the distinctive vocals of Linda Perry come through the speakers, you get a sense of the challenge they feel as they try to figure out what to do with 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up.” Continue reading »
‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.
This month, our ongoing series of One Hit Wonders covers comes to its end. We’ve done the 1950s (think “Earth Angel,” “Tequila”), the 1960s (“96 Tears,” “In A Gadda Da Vida”), the 1970s (“My Sharona,” “Black Betty”), and the 1980s (“You Spin Me Right Round,” “Turning Japanese”). Now we hit the 1990s today and the 2000s next week.
For millennial readers, these will be the songs you remember hearing on the radio and watching on MTV growing up. So many ubiquitous classics of the era like New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” by artists who only had a brief moment in the sun (you might say someone stole their sunshine…). Also some fun flukes, where the artist’s cultural impact goes way beyond “one hit wonder” — but, according to the fickle US pop charts at the time, they qualify on a technicality: Robyn, Fiona Apple, etc. Plus Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” which has to be in the conversation for the most One Hit Wonder to have ever One Hit Wonder-ed. 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 »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
4 Non Blondes were fine with not fitting in. They even named their group after a pointed run in with a blonde family in San Francisco that made that fact very clear. Although they only made one album and disbanded after five years, the group made a splash while they were together. They were particularly influential in the LGBTQ+ community, getting their start in various bars throughout San Francisco. Since the breakup, lead singer Linda Perry and guitarist Shaunna Hall have written and produced with other artists, and drummer Wanda Day continued to drum in other bands until an accident made it too difficult to continue playing.
Their second single, “What’s Up?” was a success all over the world, reaching higher spots on the charts outside of the US than even inside. And although it may be considered a one-hit wonder, the song is one that remains relevant when you are just feeling a bit run down. Some may call it a pre-chorus, I just call it my daily routine.
Here we have five covers of “What’s Up?” trying all the time to live up to the original. All of the covers begin with a different instrument leading the way. I dare you not to sing along.
“Deep Dark Robot is an artificial agent trying to be human and, at the end of the day, we’re all just trying to be human,” says Linda Perry of her new band. Joining forces with Tony Tornay, one of the founding members of American desert rock band Fatso Jetson, Perry returns to being in a band 15 years after the break up of 4 Non Blondes. Perry has stayed active in the music scene writing and producing hit songs for Christina Aguilera, Pink, Gwen Stefani, and more, but now she is back where it all started in front of the mic. Continue reading »