Postmodern Jukebox, also known as PMJ, is a musical group spearheaded by pianist and musical genius Scott Bradley that performs covers of pop hits from yesterday and today. While the featured artists of each cover change, their sound remains consistent: Groovy retro jazz. Continue reading »
Do you ever find yourself struggling to understand all the lyrics to Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights”? Now that we have the internet, it’s much easier, but if you heard it on the radio in the ’70s or ’80s, you might have been unsure as to what Bush was singing. Continue reading »
Follow all our Best of 2022 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.
The big story in 2022 covers came from a song that’s almost 40 years old: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God).” After Kate Bush’s classic had its Stranger Things moment, every week we got a half dozen new covers. It’s been six months since the show came out, and they’re still coming! This entire list could have been “Running Up That Hill” covers if we’d let it.
We didn’t, and it isn’t. The song makes one appearance, as do a number of other trendy 2022 items: Wet Leg, GAYLE, and Beabadoobee; the latest Cat Power covers project; posthumous releases (Dr. John, Levon Helm); songs that tie into coming out of pandemic isolation.
But, as always, a joy of our list is all the covers that tie into nothing, and that you won’t find anywhere else. Doom-metal Townes Van Zandt? Bluegrass Eminem? Ska Eddie Murphy? Folk Björk? Psych-rock Groucho Marx? Those are just five of the fifty killer covers on this year’s countdown. So run up that road, run up that hill, run up that building, and read on at the link below.
Bob Dylan doesn’t change his setlists much anymore. In fact, on his recent UK and European tour, he played the exact same setlist every single night…except one. The day it was announced Jerry Lee Lewis passed away, Dylan returned to the stage after his usual finale “Every Grain of Sand.” As anyone who’s read his new book knows, Bob knows his music history. So he skipped the obvious picks and tackled the quite obscure Sun Records-era outtake “I Can’t Seem to Say Goodbye.” Continue reading »
This month, Joe Strummer would have turned 70. In a few weeks, Dark Horse Records will release the compilation Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years. To promote it, director Lance Bangs filmed a video of Eddie Vedder covering the posthumously-released Mescaleros track “Long Shadow.” It’s a simple fireside performance, similar to Vedder buddy Neil Young’s lockdown videos, and hopefully will bring more attention to a lesser known non-Clash track from the Strummer catalog. Continue reading »
It’s been a big summer for Kate Bush covers. More specifically, it’s been a big summer for covers of one Kate Bush song: “Running Up That Hill,” made viral by its prominent usage in Stranger Things. As Hope Silverman noted in her recent Hounds of Love feature, there’s a lot more to the Bush ouvre than this massive four-decades-delayed hit though. UK listeners have long known this, of course, but she’s been largely relegated to “cult act” in America (it’s probably why she keeps losing votes to get her in the Rock Hall). Continue reading »