In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month and AAPI Heritage Month, Los Angeles-based artist, SASAMI (Sasami Ashworth) released a poignant cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs‘ indie anthem “Maps.” This rendition is part of the “Song That Found Me at the Right Time” series, a collaboration between the nonprofit Sounds of Saving and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, aiming to highlight the therapeutic power of music. Filmmaker Rita Baghdadi directed the PSA video. It starts with a brief introduction by the indie artist before gliding into the music. Sasami casually sits on the floor, chatting about her admiration for Karen O, one of the few Asian Americans in the rock scene in the early 2000s. She highlights “Maps” as one of the songs that showed her the cathartic nature of writing music.Continue reading »
If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting. – David Bowie
In March 1975, David Bowie released Young Americans, the album that saw him move from glam rock to Philly soul. It was his first top ten album in America, featuring his first number one song in “Fame.” Fifty years later, that golden anniversary is enough of a hook to hang a Cover Me Best Covers Ever feature on. But the remarkable thing about David Bowie is, this was little more than a blip in his career. He had other personas to invent, other forms to master, other brilliancies to create. And he wouldn’t rest until (long after) he did.
Bowie’s influence on popular culture cannot be overstated, and not just in the music world – I’m convinced that roughly one-third of Tilda Swinton is David Bowie. For millions of misfits worldwide, he himself was the freak flag, the one who made it okay to be other than. I’ll help you with the pain, he sang. You’re not alone. Give me your hands. ‘Cause you’re wonderful. It’s a message that still sings out today, in Bowie’s songs and in the work of those he influenced.
Now, with these forty covers, we have a combination of the two. Bowie recorded the earliest song here at the age of twenty, the most recent at sixty-eight, months away from his death. It’s a true wonder how high the bar of quality stayed for nearly half a century. It’s not a wonder how good the covers are, though – when inspired by the one who inspired them to step up, step out, step on stage, everyone here went a little bit out of their depth and did something exciting.
There is no Queen without Freddie Mercury. On a fundamental level, we all agree that is true. But, if you want to be literal about it, there is Queen without Freddie Mercury. Thirty years after Freddie’s death, the show must go on, and so the band still exists. Adam Lambert now sings Freddie’s parts on tour, just as Paul Rodgers did before him. The Bohemian Rhapsody movie included some new vocal recordings – not by star Rami Malek, but by Canadian singer Marc Martel. And then of course there are the many singers who fronted Queen at the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, broadcast to an audience of up to one billion people. (If you haven’t watched George Michael singing “Somebody to Love” or Annie Lennox joining David Bowie for “Under Pressure,” go do that now, then come back.)
Suffice to say, millions if not billions of people have heard Queen songs sung by singers other than Freddie Mercury. But none of those we just mentioned are covers, strictly speaking, since they feature most or all of the band’s three surviving members. Bassist John Deacon has since departed – and his joining Queen fifty years ago this month, solidifying the lineup, marks the anniversary we’re pegging this post to – but guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor have kept the Queen name alive. No doubt, when touring becomes a thing again, Queen will be back on the road once again.
The forty actual covers on our list do not feature any members of Queen. As such, they’re free to roam much further afield than Adam Lambert or George Michael, turning the band’s hits and the occasional deep cut into genres from polka to punk, a cappella to acoustic instrumental. Queen dabbled in so many different genres during their time – I mean, “Bohemian Rhapsody” alone! – I think they’d appreciate how malleable their songs can be. Even when they’re not the ones performing their songs, Queen will rock you.
Typically, the world of cover songs does not change that much year-to-year. You can point to big shifts across decades, sure, but the difference between cover songs in 2018 and 2019, broadly speaking? Negligible. But 2020 was – in this as in everything else – very different.
As concerts ground to a sudden halt, musicians turned to live-from-quarantine home performances, first on their social media, then, once some kind of business model got built up, on various paid platforms. And cover songs were a big part of that. Some musicians did themed covers nights, like Ben Gibbard on YouTube early on or Lucinda Williams’ more produced Lu’s Jukebox series more recently. Others just felt the freedom in such an intimate environment to try things out, spontaneously covering influences, inspirations, or even songs they only half knew. We collected dozens of those early home covers in our Quarantine Covers series, and still only hit a small fraction.
Musicians eventually settled in, and productions got a little more elaborate than the staring-at-your-iPhone-camera look. Witness the heavy metal comedy series Two Minutes to Late Night, which transitioned from a long-running live show in New York City to a series of YouTube covers with dozens of metal-scene ringers covering songs from their couches, corpse paint and all. Witness Miley Cyrus’s endless series of killer cover locales, from a fire pit to an empty Whisky a Go Go. Or witness long-running radio covers series like BBC’s Live Lounge or Triple J’s Like a Version – often the source of a song or two on these lists. First they had musicians tape special covers from home, then, in the BBC’s case, they moved to a giant warehouse studio for suitable social distancing. (Triple J’s pretty much back to post-coronavirus business as usual – sure, Australia, rub it in.)
There’s one other major way covers reflected 2020, and it’s almost too painful to think about, so I’ll just list their names. John Prine. Adam Schlesinger. Hal Willner. Charley Pride. So many musicians taken by this virus, many reflected in some of these covers (Pride’s death happened after our list was finalized, but tributes are already rolling in). In a year filled with tragedies, covers offered one place for musicians and fans to find solace.
Many of the songs on our year-end list reflect this terrible year in one way or another. But you know what? Many don’t. Because covers can also offer a fun respite from all the stress. Doom metal Doobie Brothers? Post Malone on mandolin? A viral TikTok hit by a guy who calls himself Ritt Momney? Those have nothing to do with anything! But they’re what we live for.
Ashley McBryde – You’re Lookin’ at Country (Loretta Lynn cover)
The Country Music Hall of Fame recently presented a video series called Big Night at the Museum, getting modern country and Americana artists to cover Hall of Famers. Lucinda Williams did Johnny Cash, Miranda Lambert did John Prine, and a bunch more. Best by a blonde-streaked hair was Ashley McBryde, a performer who skirts the line between country, Americana, and brawny rock, proving her bona fides on Loretta Lynn’s “You’re Lookin’ at Country.”Continue reading »
With the stress of election day now behind us, everyone in the US and beyond is blowing a collective sigh of relief (well, not everyone). Until the result was announced, the tension seemed almost at boiling point. Karen O and Willie Nelson’s duet cover of Queen’s classic hit “Under Pressure,” released just recently, attempts to provide a cool salve to the psyche.Continue reading »
