The Best Covers of 1950s One Hit Wonders

 Posted by at 9:00 am  2 Responses »
May 052023
 

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

best covers of 1950s

As regular readers know, every month we put together a giant list we call Best Covers Ever. We take a household-name artist and count down the best covers of their songs. We’ve done Bob Dylan and Beyoncé and Billy Joel and Bee Gees and Britney Spears and Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen and Buddy Holly and those are just the B’s.

What do all of those “B” artists have in common? Not much, except for this: They all have a lot of different songs that get covered by a lot of different people.

But there are some artists who will likely never get their own list here. Why not? Maybe they just don’t get covered enough. Or maybe they get covered often — but people mostly just cover a single song. These are the artists we colloquially call One Hit Wonders. And in a special series starting today, we’re celebrating covers of their songs. Continue reading »

Pick Five: Juliana Hatfield

 Posted by at 10:00 am  1 Response »
Apr 122018
 

In Pick Five, great artists pick five cover songs that matter to them.

juliana hatfield covers

Juliana Hatfield is an old hat at making an unlikely song her own. Earlier this year, she made both our Best Cover Songs of January and March roundups. A couple years before that, her version of “Needle in the Hay” was a high point of a Wes Anderson tribute album. A couple years before that, she released a terrific self-titled covers album of her own. I mean, how far back do we want to go here? Hell, she even made our Best Cover Songs of 1996 list! Suffice to say, she knows how to crush a great cover.

That’s why we were so excited to hear about Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John, which comes out tomorrow. It more than lives up to our high expectations. Hatfield takes on hits like “Physical” alongside plenty of deep cuts that prove this is not some gimmick; she’s a genuine fan. Continue reading »

Full Albums: The Ramones’ ‘Rocket to Russia’

 Posted by at 5:00 pm  3 Responses »
Aug 052015
 
ramonesweek

Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!

rocket-to-russia

Now, this’ll be a straight walk-off, old school rules. First model walks; second model duplicates, then elaborates. – David Bowie, Zoolander

If Ramones was the Ramones setting the pace, and Leave Home was them duplicating it, then Rocket to Russia was the moment where the Ramones refined their musical approach to an absolute peak. They had perfected their loud fast rules, and were able to expand on them without abandoning them. They varied their tempos, landing hooks with their slow songs just as easily as with their fast ones. They sounded better than ever, with a production budget nearly twice as much as that of their first two albums combined. And they did two cover songs instead of their usual one.
Continue reading »

Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox Teams Up with Black Lips for Ramones’ “Do You Wanna Dance”

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  No Responses »
Sep 142011
 

At a gig in their home state this weekend, Atlanta garage punk act Black Lips teamed up with Bradford Cox for some cover-on-cover action, taking on The Ramones’ “Do You Wanna Dance.” After a cryptic Twitter message hinting at his appearance, the Deerhunter frontman and fellow Georgian turned up to provide vocals for an impromptu performance of the track, which was originally recorded by Bobby Freeman in 1958. This version, however, is all Ramones, right down to Cox’s costume. Continue reading »