Alex Lahey — Rock & Roll Queen (The Subways cover)
Four years ago, Australian singer/songwriter Alex Lahey topped our year-end list with a truly phenomenal cover of Faith Hill’s 1998 hit “This Kiss.” She made the Top 10 again in 2023 singing Mama Cass’s Make Your Own Kind of Music.” At this point, whenever Lahey drops a new cover, we’re immediately interested. Her latest, the b-side to a new single supporting trans rights, tackles indie-rockers The Subways 2005 single “Rock & Roll Queen.” Unlike some of her other covers, Lahey doesn’t change it that much (no need to make the already loud-and-rocking song louder and rockier like “This Kiss”). Still, it rips.Continue reading »
Fanny Lumsden and her Prawnstars have recreated the plucky 2011 radio hit “Somebody That I Used To Know.” Their version first debuted via ABC’s Spicks and Specks last year. Now, they have a music video for their masterpiece of a cover.Continue reading »
As regular readers know, here at Cover Me we put together a Best Covers Ever list every month for a celebrated artist. We’ve recently done the Pet Shop Boys and Sheryl Crow. And before them we did the biggie – The Beatles – and before them, Bob Dylan! But every now and again, there’s a particular genre that’s crying out for the Best Covers Ever treatment – and this month it’s the Dark Genre. It’s goth!
So why now, you ask? Are goth covers really a thing? And why don’t Alien Sex Fiend or Fields of the Nephilim have their own Best Covers Ever features?
Fair questions, all. First off, goth music is everywhere right now. It may have emerged out of the UK post-punk scene and enjoyed its most innovative period from 1980 to 1982, but it’s now the reason we have Whitby Goth Weekends in April and November (well, that and Count Dracula), World Goth Day on May 22, and goth nights down the Hatchet Inn in Bristol most nights, particularly Thursday. It’s also why we have heaps of goth books on the market right now, from John Robb’s The Art of Darkness to Lol Tolhurst’s Goth: A History and Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch, all trying to explain goth’s lasting influence as a musical subculture: the fixation with death, the dark theatricality, the Victorian melodrama, the leather, the thick black eyeliner, the fishnet tights, the deviance, the sex, the deviant sex, and, of course, spiders.Continue reading »
Cheating a little as we missed this one in July, but if you too haven’t heard the acoustic “We Belong” Brandi’s been playing on tour with The Twins, it will be worth the wait. “We belong together” takes on a whole new meaning as we (try to) come out of quarantine.Continue reading »
Last week, Stereogum published a fascinating oral history of “Somebody That I Used to Know” for the song’s 10th anniversary. (Among other things, it answers the question “What ever happened to Gotye?” Turns out he’s been making rock albums with a different band!). Now New Zealand indie-pop singer Benee has covered the song for Amazon Music, saying “I resonate so strongly with the lyrics in this song. I wish that I had written it.”Continue reading »
Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.
Do supergroups still exist these days? Definitely! Fans of these folks might not think they are quite under the radar, but these groups are either generally framed less as supergroups or their prior musical experiences may have been under the radar themselves. There are many more supergroups under the radar to explore. Tell us about your favorites in the comments!
