Harry Styles is in full promo mode for his new album, Kiss All the Time, Disco Occasionally, and part of that tour led him to the BBC Live Lounge. In previous appearances, Styles had indulged his interest in covers, playing songs by Fleetwood Mac, Lizzo, Wet Leg and Paul McCartney. Now, with his most recent appearance, Styles added Tears for Fears to the list. Continue reading »
Lizzo sent her congratulations for the four Grammy nominations given to the cast and crew of KPop Demon Hunters with a flute cover. The pop star’s celebration included going back to her flute-playing roots and posting an Instagram video of herself (and her flute) covering the track “Golden” from the Netflix animated film’s soundtrack. A full-bodied, strong accompaniment from the Australian Pop Quartet provided backing on the cover. Continue reading »
Aaron Taos says: “When Jordana and I met for the first time, we realized very quickly that we both shared an obsession with the Strokes. What’s more surprising is that we also share the same favorite Strokes song, “Under Control,” an album cut off of their second LP Room On Fire. Naturally, we decided that we had to cover this amazing tune. Reimagined as a minimalist duet, this slow burn produced by Blake Richardson (formerly artist Sage Baptiste) also comes with a lo-fi vid shot in Brooklyn, NY. We just want to make Julian Casablancas proud.” Continue reading »
Giant pop stars performing unexpected covers live in concert are a dime a dozen. They’re no doubt a blast for fans in the room, but often fail to translate on video. That’s particularly true of those regionally-pandering covers like “Hey we’re in Seattle, let’s do ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.'” Lizzo’s recent cover of Rammstein’s “Du Hast” is an exception.
She performed it a couple times on her recent German tour. The first time in Hamburg, she just sang a couple lines in between songs. That’s exactly the sort of pop-star cover that delivers clickbait-y headlines, but isn’t really worth watching (if you want to anyway, it’s here).
But then a week later in Berlin, she upped the ante. This time, her whole band had actually learned the song – as had her backing dancers, who delivered a little choreographed headbanging. As always, though, the star of The Lizzo Show is Lizzo, joyously belting a few passes at the chorus (she presumably doesn’t actually speak German to handle the whole thing) while jumping around and having a blast. It’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t work if you weren’t in the room, but absolutely does. Give your day a jolt of Rammstein-flavored joy below.
If you missed the whole brouhaha when Steely Dan dropped Aimee Mann as their opening act, it’s too long to recap here. To skip to the end, Mann tweeted, “All is forgiven if Donald [Fagan] just tells me what Brooklyn is about.” And he did! So, at a recent show at City Winery, she covered it. All does indeed appear to be forgiven. Continue reading »
Any month with a new cover by Beyoncé is a big month. Admittedly, her piano-crooning “Moon River” like so many others have piano-crooned “Moon River” – and for a Tiffany’s ad no less – is slightly underwhelming. But we’ll take what we can get, and, even if the approach is hardly novel, Beyoncé’s got the pipes to deliver. Continue reading »