Aug 262011
 

This Week on Bandcamp rounds up our favorite covers to hit the site in the past seven days.

Some weeks we have to dig deep to find five great new covers on Bandcamp. Other weeks…man oh man. Without even trying this week we found ourselves with 20+ songs, any one of which might have made the set on another occasion. We narrowed it down to 10 – five main tunes, and five bonus tracks. Think of it as an extra-sturdy dose of covers to get you through the hurricane. Continue reading »

Jan 282011
 

Every now and again a cover appears in our inbox that knocks us sideways. Often such recordings showcase performances of under-covered gems or culturally relevant songs (current hits, artist just died, etc). “Over the Rainbow” falls about as far outside those guidelines as you can get. Hell, it was the second most covered song of 2010! But of the 4,241 versions for sale on Amazon, I guarantee none sound like this. Continue reading »

Oct 132010
 

Every Wednesday, our resident Gleek Eric Garneau gives his take on last night’s Glee covers.

Hello, Glee readers (Gleaders?)! Two important things have happened since last week’s post went up. First: Glee topped the Beatles‘ record for number of entries on the Billboard Hot 100; last week’s releases brought them up to 75 charting tracks, versus the Beatles’ paltry 71 (ironic that last week’s songs included the show’s first #1 Beatles cover, no?). We’re only four episodes into the series’ second season at this point and the show doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, so I can’t imagine what Glee’s record will look like at the end.

Second, I received some feedback that readers might like me to be a little more critical in these roundups—not to tear the show apart (unless it needs it), but to call out performances that maybe weren’t great and spotlight those that were. I’m going to try that out this week and I’d like to start by retroactively saying that I find Rachel’s character insufferable this season, so when “Grilled Cheesus” delivered her singing an awful Barbra Streisand song from a movie that I’m sure would make me want to claw my eyes out, her case was not helped in the slightest. Continue reading »

Aug 242010
 

Song of the Day posts one cool cover every morning. Catch up on past installments here.

Now, there’s nothing inherently difficult about getting through 32 songs in eight minutes. Try this: “Hey Jude, please please please roll over the rainbow and turn on the 4th red brick in the wall. Rattle and roll a muzzle of cheeseburger puppets to Alice’s house of the rising sonic exploder and sedate my shame and fortune to the blue suede siren. Small and humble homies gonna cut your hair down to the crossroads, but only the funk soul dandy compares 2 losing my rock lobster. No ‘G’ thang, no cry.”

There’s, that’s 32 songs and it took about twenty seconds [side challenge: how many can you identify?]. Getting through 32 songs and making it sound good though…well, that’s something else entirely. Fredrik Larsson aka. Freddegredde pulls it off in a speedy YouTube medley, nodding at viral videos alongside the rock and pop. View the video below, then peruse the full list of songs below the clip. Continue reading »