On his new covers album High Drama, Adam Lambert didn’t pick one of the obvious Billie Eilish songs to cover (“Bad Guy,” “Everything I Wanted,” etc). He goes for relative deep cut “Getting Older,” off her 2021 album Happier Than Ever. Eilish’s original was fairly minimalist. Lambert doesn’t do “minimalist.” His “glam” version, as he describes it, makes the song sound like a much bigger hit than it was. Continue reading »
Last weekend, CMT broadcast “A Celebration of the Life and Music of Loretta Lynn” at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry House. A host of country music royalty turned up to play her songs, from veteran industries stars like George Strait and Tanya Tucker to newer outlaws like The Highwomen and Margo Price. Jack White sang “Van Lear Rose,” off the album of the same name he produced for Lynn in 2004. Keith Urban busted out a banjo-guitar for “You’re Lookin’ at Country,” Lynn’s 1971 hit. Strait tackled early chart-topper “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind).” Her tracks pushing at the conservative country establishment got airings too: Price performed the pioneering birth control song “The Pill” – a song the Opry, where this show took place, once tried to ban – and Darius Rucker (of all people) performed the feminist anthem “Fist City.” Continue reading »
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 your favorite example of an artist “covering” their own song?
Continue reading »
Every Wednesday (or Monday), our resident Gleek Eric Garneau gives his take on last night’s Glee covers.
Wow, what a game! Did you see the Green Bay Packers do all those things with the ball? But they just weren’t quite equal to the things which the Pittsburgh Steelers did, or maybe they were! What do you mean you don’t think I watched the Bowl? Those puppies were adorable!
Anyway. That most popular, prolific cover-creating machine in American culture known as Glee has returned with new episodes following a two month break. For their half-season kickoff, they scored the coveted post-Super Bowl timeslot, which has traditionally led already-popular television programs to incredibly high ratings. It’d probably be an exaggeration to suggest that the eyes of the world were on Glee last night, but it’s fair to say that a whole lot of people were watching. Continue reading »