Feb 202017
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

matt vadnais

Matthew Vadnais lives in Beloit, Wisconsin. He’s been writing for Cover Me since 2015. Of all his Cover Me essays, he especially likes his reviews of the albums paying tribute to Blind Willie Johnson, Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression, and Jason Molina.
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Mar 122013
 

The music of Mark Kozelek, whether made with his former band Red House Painters, under his own name, or as Sun Kil Moon, has been described many ways: dreamy, melancholic, and wistful come to mind. With the release of his newest covers album, Like Rats, you can add creepy to the list. The songs he’s picked to cover have lyrics that are alternately menacing and depressing, either overtly or because they’ve been stripped of their accompanying upbeat music. Kozelek has never shied away from darker themes in his music: the yearning loss in RHP’s “Michael,” death and loneliness (and maybe serial killers?) in SKM’s “Glenn Tipton,” regret and self-pity in his cover of John Denver’s “I’m Sorry.” Kozelek’s voice often soars over the intricate guitars, though, and its sweetness lends the songs a faint glimmer of hope. But on “Like Rats,” he sings a register lower than usual (more on that decision later) and piles dark song upon dark song until the listener is off-balance from the assault of negativity. The album is barely 30 minutes in length, and anything more might be too much. Continue reading »

Dec 202010
 

Download This scours the web’s dark corners for cool cover freebies. View past installments.

Despite their misleadingly-gendered name, The Harvey Girls are a husband and wife duo originating from Lawrence, KS. In their bio, they highlight ABBA, The Shangri-Las and Prince Paul (producer of De La Soul and Queen Latifah) as musical influences. Suffice to say, they have eclectic musical taste.

Their psych-pop eclecticism comes to the fore on their ’80s covers album Our History Is Your Kitsch. We featured album highlight “White Wedding”, in the past, but the rest of the album stands almost as tall. The song selection seems as if they took the first 8 songs that came up in an iPod shuffle and decided to cover them. Again…eclectic. Continue reading »