Aug 232023
 
Lavalove

“Lithium” is the third single from Nirvana’s Nevermind. Though less of a hit than the two previous singles, it is the band’s fourth-most streamed song to date, and is one of their most covered. The one-word chorus probably helps with that.

Lavalove are a California self-styled indie pop band that just released their debut album this spring.  But their cover of “Lithium” is not what you think of when you think of “indie pop.”

They begin the song pretty close to the original, but with a faster pace. The biggest difference at first is lead singer Tealarose Coy’s voice, which is bratty and a little affected in a way that doesn’t really fit the otherwise faithful grunge sound of the verse. (Coy’s professional name does justice to her delivery.) In the chorus, she is joined by backing vocals that, along with a double beat, give the song a bit of a pop-punk feel.

But the real departure, and the reason the cover is really fun, is what they do in the bridges. For the first iteration of the bridge, the distortion drops out the band vamps. Coy drops the “I’m not gonna crack” refrain from this section, just singing the first part of each line. She and the guitar drop out at the end, before the return to the verse. For the second bridge, there’s utter cacophony from distorted voices, one bringing back in the “I’m not gonna crack” refrain, and one that is indecipherable (and sounds like an atonal saxophone). It’s almost like a tribute to the noisier side of Nirvana.

It’s a far cry from “indie pop” – a cover that starts out sounding fairly faithful but then going off in some weird, abrasive directions in the bridge.

Jul 262023
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

sinead o'connor covers

When we do our monthly Best Covers Ever countdowns, paying tribute to different versions of a given artist’s songs, it’s fun to surprise people with something unexpected. But a couple months ago, when we counted down covers of Prince, it was only ever a race for number two. The best cover of Prince is, in this case, also the most famous. Most famous for a reason. I’m talking, of course, about Sinead O’Connor singing “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Here’s a bit of Seuras Og’s writeup from that list:

“Arguably a pretty slim item in the hands of its composer, O’Connor gave it a remarkable polish, inhabiting the lyric and bleeding out the meaning. OK, she had, and still has, the vocal chops to squeeze emotion into and out of almost anything, and this song is a masterclass in voice control, of volume and microphone technique. The video, especially as she sheds unprompted tears, clearly adds to the overall heft, but even without that visual, still the power is immense. Completeness also insists on showing how timeless her ownership of the song has been, with a live performance or two, decades apart, each as striking, in different ways, as the other.”

But Sinead O’Connor had a lot more to offer than just her one big hit—and that’s even just limiting ourselves to the covers world. Sure, she topped our Best Prince Covers list, but she also appeared on our Best Elton John Covers list, our Best ABBA Covers list, our Best Dolly Parton Covers list, our Best Nirvana Covers list. How’s that for range?
Continue reading »

Cover Genres: Box

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  1 Response »
Jun 092023
 

Cover Genres takes a look at cover songs in a very specific musical style.

box

Herewith the last in the unholy triumvirate of banjo, bagpipes, and box. Time now to unwrap the wonders of melodeon, accordion, concertina, bandoneon and all their squeezy family upon your eager ears. Actually (maybe) a primitive  precursor of the synthesizer, the squeezebox family started life as a way of letting one player give a more orchestral sound to proceedings, the rich textures replicating the play of a whole bevy of musicians. Indeed, in the same way as the Musician’s Union decried the synthesizer, so too will the equivalent of its day have decried the box, taking work away from honest pipe’n’taborists.

This family of instruments casts, arguably, far wider a net than the two B’s that have preceded it here, banjo and bagpipes, with a right of place across very many cultures and categories. Broadly occupying a space in ethnic roots traditions, this has never stopped appearances crossing over into territories that might be more squeeze-averse. Which to me is the joy.
Continue reading »

Oct 072022
 

One Great Cover looks at the greatest cover songs ever, and how they got to be that way.

“I didn’t screw it up, did I?” Kurt Cobain, November 18, 1993

The Man Who Sold the World” is a David Bowie narrative song concerned with, not the anguish of spaceflight, but the anguish of a fractured personality. Yet few people noticed when it was released in 1970 on the poor-selling album of the same name, as the singer struggled to follow through on the success of his “Space Oddity” hit of 1969. It wasn’t released as a single. And it was soon vastly overshadowed by the mighty glam-rock chart attack that came of Bowie doppelgangers Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane: “Starman,” “John, I’m Only Dancing,” “The Jean Genie.”

Continue reading »

Jul 182022
 
Mike Dawes and Tommy Emmanuel

Mike Dawes is a finger-style guitarist who has become rather legendary for his performances on YouTube, some of which we’ve written up here. Tommy Emmanuel is a legendary Australian acoustic guitarist from an earlier generation, known for both his finger-picking and his playing with a pick. They’ve joined together for Emmanuel’s latest Accomplice series, Vol. 3. Continue reading »

Jun 152022
 

In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!

Hmmm–“In the Spotlight” could well be the giveaway, being exactly where at least half of this odd couple seems, more than anything else, to want to be. Odd couple? Well, back in the day, I daresay that the idea of Robert Fripp, the complex guitar wrangler of King Crimson fame, besuited and besitted always, having a lengthy and lasting marriage with Toyah Willcox, the punk-pop princess of Birmingham with the look-at-me dramatics, was not one of life’s great certainties.

I confess to being quite delighted by the couple’s first forays into Sunday Lunchtime COVID-19 entertainment, as much for the bizarre hoops Mrs. Fripp could put her permanently-bemused husband through, in the sake of raising the spirits of those who stumbled onto these little vignettes of, apparently, their life.

According to Willcox, the purpose of these weekly vids was primarily to lift Fripp out of the black dog that permeated him as lockdown locked down, depriving him of both an outlet for and an income for his art. So, on 5th April 2020, those idly browsing the net became party to the extraordinary image of the couple, dressed to the nines, having a bop to Bill Haley’s vintage hit, “Rock Around the Clock.” And looking to be having a whale of a time.
Continue reading »