Oct 272023
 

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

Velvet Underground and Nico

On October 27, 2013, ten years ago today, Lou Reed died. I happened to be in New York City at the time, and his passing was a lead story on the 11 o’clock news. It was as though a part of the city itself had died. Which, inescapably, it had. Reed embodied NYC, from its seedy back rooms to its secret heart, in a way few other people, let alone musicians, ever did.

While Reed’s solo career is highly and deservingly accoladed, it still got overshadowed by the Velvet Underground. Reed’s first band featured Welsh musician John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and drummer Maureen Tucker, with Nico singing on the first album and Doug Yule replacing Cale in 1968. The band’s four studio albums started ripples that turned into tsunamis; they went from secret-handshake status to Hall of Fame giants, their influence right up there with the Beatles.

We’re honoring Lou and Company with this collection of covers. Some covers couldn’t hold a candle to the original (you’ll find no “Heroin” here), but many of the originals were receptive to another artist’s distinctive stamp. Whether you prefer the first or what followed, you’ll hear the sound of immortality as it opens yet another path of discovery.

–Patrick Robbins, Features Editor

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Apr 292022
 
best cover songs april 2022
Aimee Mann – Brooklyn (Steely Dan cover)

If you missed the whole brouhaha when Steely Dan dropped Aimee Mann as their opening act, it’s too long to recap here. To skip to the end, Mann tweeted, “All is forgiven if Donald [Fagan] just tells me what Brooklyn is about.” And he did! So, at a recent show at City Winery, she covered it. All does indeed appear to be forgiven. Continue reading »

Apr 212022
 
bryan ferry i just don't know what to do with myself

Bacharach and David’s oft-covered “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” was first a hit outside of North America for Dusty Springfield and then in North America for Dionne Warwick. For younger people, the most famous version is probably that of The White Stripes, whose version did pretty well in the charts too.

The most famous covers of the song stick to a pretty similar tempo and feel – even the White Stripes cover, despite upping the volume considerably. But, on his new version from forthcoming EP Love Letters, Bryan Ferry slows down the pace of the song considerably and, despite the presence of a string section, he dials back on the emotion considerably. It’s pretty subdued performance for a song that routinely lends itself to histrionics. Continue reading »

Mar 312022
 
best cover songs of march 2022
Avhath – Cool / Levitating / Don’t Start Now (Dua Lipa covers)

What’s better than one Indonesian black-metal Dua Lipa cover? Three Indonesian black-metal Dua Lipa covers! Not that you’d ever know these were Dua Lipa songs unless you were listening really closely to the lyrics (and could manage to make them out).

The Band of Heathens – El Paso City (Marty Robbins cover)

During lockdown, Band of Heathens hosted a regular livestream variety show called Good Time Supper Club. One segment, “Remote Transmissions,” featured them covering a new song every episode – over 50 in all. They’re collecting some of the best on a forthcoming album of the same name: Remote Transmissions. “Making records is always about cataloging any point in time. We wanted to celebrate the unique collaborative aspect of the show,” guitarist Ed Jurdi told American Songwriter. “What better way to document the last year than with these songs?” First up is this take on a Marty Robbins country classic. Continue reading »

May 212021
 

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

Bob Dylan

As a companion piece to our best Bob Dylan single song covers post, coming this Monday, it’s worth considering the myriad tribute albums to the bard of Duluth. To narrow that down at least marginally, we’ll focus on those by an individual band or artist (several Dylan sets appeared on our recent best tribute compilations countdown). There are a lot of them, many more even than you might imagine, encompassing all styles and stages of his ever-changing moods. So let’s start setting some real guidelines here…

We’ll rule out those put together retrospectively as a compilation, so no The Byrds Play Dylan or Postcards of the Hanging by The Grateful Dead. This piece only addresses those made for and released at one sitting. Space begets also a ruthlessness that further excludes participants put together solely and especially for one specific recording, so farewell the excellent Dylan’s Gospel and the intriguing Dylan Jazz. Finally, this is a Top Twenty list, squeezing out many further worthy gems like Joan Osborne’s Songs of Bob Dylan and Robbie Fulks’ 16, a track-by-track take on Street Legal that has some of the best individual songs, frustratingly alongside some decidedly not, perhaps due to the songs and not the singer. Finally, I felt it would be interesting/indulgent to add two essential bits of information about each record:

1. What is the deepest cut contained?
2: Does it feature “Like a Rolling Stone,” the benchmark Dylan song?

Will you disagree with my selections? Sure, and that’s fine, it’s what the comments area is for. Let me know what you think shouldn’t have missed the cut, and what shouldn’t have made it.
Continue reading »

Mar 232021
 

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

Erma Franklin

You would think there would be a ton of good and/or quirky covers of “Piece of My Heart,” it being such an icon of overwrought emoting. But surprisingly (and not a little disappointingly), whilst there are many of them, most are known nearly as well known as the first cover, many making waves in the charts of their particular day. So, fewer hidden nuggets to unearth, but more fond reminders of times mislaid to be gained by revisiting.

“Piece of My Heart” was written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns, both jobbing songwriters with a slew of hits to their credit, individually and collectively. Ragovoy also had a hand in “Stay With Me, Baby,” arguably the other song of a heart breaking in explosive slo-mo. Berns was responsible for, amongst other things, our first glimpse of Van Morrison, performing the early singles of Them, “Here Comes the Night” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go.”

It was Aretha’s little sister, Erma Franklin, who first tried out “Piece of My Heart,” in 1967. (Berns had, unsuccessfully, first offered it to Van, which could have been intriguing.) Her rendition was good, very good even, hitting a credible #62 in the chart. That may well have been that, had it not caught the ears of a certain band beginning to make waves in the Bay Area.
Continue reading »