Over the weekend, Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show aired a massive set of 25 new David Bowie covers by big names across classic rock (Peter Frampton, Todd Rundgren, Daryl Hall), 1990s alternative (Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Slipknot’s Corey Taylor), and current indie favorites (Dawes, Car Seat Headrest, Sun Kil Moon). Gems abounded, but we’ve picked out the best eight covers of the bunch.
They are, not coincidentally, the songs that changed the most from the originals. David Bowie was constantly reinventing his sound, so it seems wrong to cover his songs too faithfully.Continue reading »
During their 1970s heyday, the family band Five Stairsteps were dubbed “The First Family of Soul.” These days, though, they’re best remembered for a single song: the uplifting slow-burn “O-o-h Child.” It’s become something of a standard over the years, covered by everyone from Nina Simone to Hall & Oates.
The latest make things easier/brighter is Lisa Loeb. Like the Stairsteps, she’s had multiple hits, but one stands above all else: 1994’s “Stay (I Missed You).” Her cover of “O-o-h Child,” off her new off her new kids covers album Lullaby Girl, keeps the basic Five Stairsteps format but slows it down a bit, replacing the big group vocals with a tender ballad croon.
“I’m not the first person ever to cover ‘O-O-H Child,’ but it is one of my favorites from the ’70s and I was really excited to approach it within the context of my Lullaby Girl album with my creative collaborator and producer/arranger Larry Goldings,” Loeb told Billboard, who premiered the video. “I feel that the video really looks like this song recording: it’s real, it’s intimate and it’s calming, but it has a good hint of the real energy behind it, like the original recording that inspired it.”
