Aug 312020
 
best cover songs august 2020
Alex Kapranos & Clara Luciani – Summer Wine (Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra cover)

Clara Luciani is Nancy Sinatra and Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos is Lee Hazlewood on this charming cover. Kapranos wrote, “When the lockdown started, we decided to record [‘Summer Wine’] — more for ourselves than anything else. We wanted to create the atmosphere of an imaginary world away from the confinement we were experiencing. Not that we were unhappy, but the imagination is the greatest medium for escape and adventure… After the lockdown eased off, we got together to film the video with our friends Adrien, Leo, Fiona and Hugo. I love the ideas they had, which suit the mood of the song and reflect our… well, our love of karaoke!” Continue reading »

Jul 312013
 

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

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question: What’s a song you hated until you heard it covered?

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Nov 092012
 

In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!

One of the best-reviewed documentaries of 2012 has been Searching for Sugar Man, the story of Sixto Rodriguez, a singer-songwriter who was fast forgotten in America and became a legend half a world away. Rodriguez released two albums – 1970’s Cold Fact and 1971’s Coming From Reality – that didn’t sell, and his label dropped him. He vanished like a breeze, not knowing that in South Africa, he was becoming bigger than Elvis; Cold Fact sold more than half a million copies in a nation of 40 million. Two fans there decided to find out what happened to him, what became of him, and how he died; the film follows them as they make discovery after discovery.
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Aug 082011
 

Festivals often entice artists to perform covers. What better way to convert the uninitiated than by drawing them in with a song they know and then (ideally) hooking them by transforming it into your sound? This past weekend’s Lollapalooza, though, seemed to offer even more cover performances than usual. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune even christened Saturday “#80snight” to keep track of all the ‘80s covers performed. Continue reading »

Jul 122011
 

Regular readers know that every Tuesday brings another installment in the A.V. Club’s terrific Undercover series. Bands show up in their round room and cover a song from a list. A simple premise that produces terrific results.

Today, though, the preeminent pop culture website is doing something different. In lieu of their normal routine, they recorded seven covers in various Chicago locations of songs having to do with summer. They’ll be posting these “Summer Breeze” covers all day and, as a result, we’ll be updating this post all day. Check back here or follow us on Twitter to see when more get added. Continue reading »

Jun 302011
 

Hipster-rockers Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. have gotten plenty of buzz this year, especially recently having just released their first full-length. The duo will be hitting summer festivals like Lollapalooza later this summer, which makes right now the perfect time to check out some videos of their dynamic live act, especially this recent video from MonkeyEatsMonkey of the band covering Steve Winwood’s ubiquitous classic rock radio hit “Higher Love.” Their version of the song is confident and ambitious, with the group sharing vocals and switching instruments onstage to make everything fit. Continue reading »