Mar 222018
 

“Covering the Hits” looks at covers of a randomly-selected #1 hit from the past sixty years.

connie francis my heart has a mind

Our grandparents like to tell us how much simpler things were in 1960: A world without an internet or mobile phones to navigate, steady 9-to-5 jobs, and a soundtrack of wholesome, reassuring music. Listen to “El Paso” by Marty Robbins or Brian Hyland’s deathless “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and you may feel like you’re stuck in a soft-focus time warp. (Of course, you may find that to be a pleasant feeling; no judgements here.)

But some songs from that era exhibit real staying power, whether through repeated airplay or, more often, subsequent artists’ cover versions. One of these is Connie Francis’ “My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own,” which gave the New Jersey-born singer her second #1 hit on the Billboard Top 100 on September 26, 1960. Continue reading »

Mar 272017
 
man

“17 years after America lost WW2, the country is divided and controlled by Japan and Germany. From out of the lawless neutral zone comes The Man in the High Castle’s Resistance Radio, a secret network of pirate DJs broadcasting sounds of hope.”

That’s a cooler introduction than most musical compilations get. This incredible soundtrack for Amazon’s popular TV series The Man in the High Castle was produced by Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen, who adds his own musical talents to covers of “The House of the Rising Sun” and “Get Happy.” Cohen joins a high caliber line up of musicians including Beck, Karen O, The Shins, and Norah Jones as they imagine a world where the Axis has won and musicians have gone rogue.

The current trend seems to be a marked return to the golden age of music and this influx of nostalgic talent works perfectly for the producers of the soundtrack. On advanced tracks, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, and Benjamin Booker perform covers that are nearly identical to their predecessors. Continue reading »