Cover Classics : Babybird’s ‘Covers’

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Jul 152025
 

Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.

Babybird Covers

You won’t know this one. Well, not unless you read our Good Better Best on The La’s ‘There She Goes‘, where Adam Mason gifted the best to the version from Stephen Jones, aka Babybird. (Or should that be babybird? Citation needed.) This isn’t a dig at taste anyone’s taste or due diligence in capturing all end every cover version in the world, more around the blink and you missed it nature of the release. Covid still very much the story of the day, it snuck out in June of 2021, likely a pointer to how Jones had himself spent lockdown. There were limited hard copies available, on CD, as a single disc, a double, containing a trio of additional revisions, and a special edition, with individually hand finished covers. These all sold out aeons ago, with none of these self-released items accessible even through Discogs. But, luckily for you, if so inclined, you can grab the downloads over on Bandcamp. And they are free! Continue reading »

Good, Better, Best: “There She Goes” (The La’s)

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Jul 082022
 

Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

Liverpool band The La’s were famously not happy with the version of “There She Goes” that became a UK #13 single for them in November 1990, especially not the singing La’ who wrote it, Lee Mavers. They were not happy, either, with the numerous other versions of the song they recorded for Go! Discs during 12 expensive sessions, with a string of different producers, over the preceding three years: The Bob Andrews version, the Mike Hedges version, the John Leckie version… They complained bitterly that they hadn’t nailed the song, or indeed any of the songs that appeared on their debut album, with Mavers memorably telling the NME in October 1990 that they sounded “all fucked up like a snake with a broken back.”

So what chance do other artists have in getting “There She Goes” right?
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