With time on his hands between his two weekends of headlining Coachella this year, Green Day‘s Billie Joe Armstrong took to the stage of the considerably smaller venue of Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown, California alongside musicians in Green Day’s orbit to play a set under the name The Coverups. In keeping with their name, the set was made up of nothing but covers. The show took place on April 17th, with Green Day’s Coachella sets coming on April 12th and 19th. Continue reading »
Full Albums features covers of every track off a classic album. Got an idea for a future pick? Leave a note in the comments!
Madonna was back in the news recently, as her latest release Madame X got the music press dishing out the full “return to form” treatment. No surprise, really – that’s the de rigueur clarion call to anyone of her vintage releasing, well, almost anything. To be fair, it has its moments, but nothing can beat The Immaculate Collection, the collection of Madge’s early singles that charts her journey from odd-voiced popstrel to soft-porn audio-provocateur. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
With the release of over 70 SecondHandSongs-verified versions of the Sex Pistols’ debut single since 1976 (and many more informal covers), “Anarchy In The U.K.” takes the punk prize for being their most-covered song. The harsh rallying cry for Britain’s disaffected youth has generated over 10 million views on one YouTube post alone. As noted in our track-by-track covers review of Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols, “Anarchy” kicked-off a cultural phenomenon and has garnered accolades from establishment icons like Rolling Stone magazine and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame which, at the time, the band would have stood systematically against.
The original appeared as a single nearly a year before it was featured on the band’s one and only studio album. It opens with the crashing of guitars, drums and John Lydon’s shout of “Rrrright! Now!” followed by laughter. The sonic assault breaks for a fake belch before Lydon resumes his screeching diatribe that includes a laundry list of politically themed abbreviations (IRA, UDA, MPLA) and the recently-discontinued British music newsweekly NME.
Music writer Tim Sommer in The Observer had this to say in a great article about the song on its 40th anniversary:
But for a staggering, shattering few moments, “Anarchy in the U.K.” and the Sex Pistols shocked the world as no other artist ever has or ever will. We can never recreate that moment, the instant when a rock band from the wrong side of the socio-economic spectrum made a loud noise and shouted “Match!” while sitting on a pile of dynamite, but here’s hoping it can happen again.
We’ve rounded up a variety of styles of the iconic track worth sharing. John Lydon marked his final live performance as Johnny Rotten with the question, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” It’s safe to say that none of these covers will leave you feeling that way!
1983 was a great year for music. Michael Jackson was riding his album Thriller to levels never seen before or since. Men at Work was singing about Vegemite sandwiches. Even older bands like Toto, The Police, and Golden Earring were making a name for themselves. Again.
And then there was Mötley Crüe. Continue reading »
When presented with a series of cover albums called Guilt by Association, one might imagine them to be filled with ironic takes on cheesy pop songs; that threat’s only increased by a volume that promises to present only songs that fall under the classification of “hair metal,” perhaps the most mocked of all genres. Fortunately, Guilt by Association Vol. 3 betrays no sign of hipster bands mocking songs that some people (this reviewer) legitimately love. Instead, it finds a collection of young, talented acts embracing some admittedly overwrought material from the 1980s and truly making it their own. By any metric, Guilt by Association can be considered a success. Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
“Helter Skelter,” one of many hit tracks from the Beatles‘ exalted 1968 White Album, has often been lauded as a progenitor of heavy metal. There was just something about the track’s discordant guitar, insistent toms, and raucous vocal that spoke to musicians who wanted to be loud. Led Zeppelin properly outlined the genre a couple years later, but with this song the Beatles alerted us to the possibly of its existence in the first place.
It makes sense, then, that metal bands of all kinds would want to take a crack at “Helter Skelter,” the granddaddy of heavy. They’re not the only ones though; dozens of covers by famous artists exist for this song, as well as countless interpretations by those less noted. Below we’ve picked out five that stand out from the crowd. Continue reading »