Put on your scarves and Buddy Holly glasses, cause today we’re bringing you the band that was emo before the term existed, and once the term did exist, still kicked ass. For everyone who grew up on the first of their three self-titled albums, and Pinkerton, here are a few new ways to think about your favorite songs. Oh, and did I mention their new one comes out tomorrow? =w=
Asher – My Name Is Jonas
One of the better-known songs on the album, I had trouble finding a decent cover of this one. The best I could find is this solo acoustic take. I like the guy’s voice, but the recording quality’s not great.
Beans – No One Else
Weezer rave!!! Someone get me a glowstick.
Christopher John – The World Has Turned and Left Me Here
One of the more obscure songs on the record, this was always a favorite of mine. This quiet take mostly does it justice, though the singer verges on whiney.
Biffy Clyro – Buddy Holly
The same group who brought you that Umbrella cover that made the blog rounds last year, here Clyro brings a spastic guitar-attack to the album’s trademark song. If you haven’t seen the original video, incidentally, it’s one of their best, so check it out.
Spoony – Undone (The Sweater Song)
It starts out just like the original. Then quickly stops being anything like the original.
Relient K – Surf Wax America
An acoustic take of a song they performed live on their ’06 tour, they strip it back to acoustic guitars and some super-sensitive harmonies. Pity this version doesn’t have the piano and steel guitar the live version does, but it’s the only decent quality recording I could find.
Wakey! Wakey! – Say It Ain’t So
This guy has gotten a lot of well-deserved hype for his cover series, and this song is a perfect example, a delicate piano take that manages to not be as lame as that description might sound.
Hermann H and the Pacemakers – In the Garage
Off the incredible – and incredibly strange – Japanese tribute album Across the Sea, Hermann brings the bossanova excitement with a full horn section.
Glasseater – Holiday
Like the original, but crunchier, and with a wannabe John Bonham on drums.
Mock Orange – Only In Dreams
At four and half minutes, the length pales in comparison to the original, but it’s a tightly-done take that makes the song as loud and rocking as everything else on the original album.
Karine Polwart is a not a folk singer. Yes, she performs, arguably, in the folk tradition, but by and large, she sings her own material, covering weighty topics such as sex trafficking and depression, somehow contriving an upbeat mood to these often gloomy subjects. Fiercely intelligent, she is fit to stand alongside other Scottish songwriters, such as Dick Gaughan and Michael Marra. Apart from her own material, it has been from the canon of trad.arr. that she has drawn most inspiration, as well as a hefty number of the songs of Rabbie Burns. So I would say that Polwart’s new album Karine Polwart’s Scottish Songbook has come as a bit of a surprise to most. And it is the modern Scottish songbook she applies herself to, not broadsheets and bothy ballads. Indeed, apart from John Martyn’s 1973 song “Don’t Want to Know,” the earliest song on the album, Songbook draws nothing from any conspicuously folkie background. The catholic selection ranges through the Waterboys and the Blue Nile to current electro-poppers Chvrches and the eccentric oddball poet Ivor Cutler. No Rod Stewart, some may be pleased to recognize.
