Why does Asher White have a record titled Jessica Pratt? Because, as it turns out, it is a full-length cover of singer-songwriter Jessica Pratt’s 2012 debut record—which happens to be self-titled. Pratt herself approves: “White’s curiously inventive renditions took me by surprise,” she said in a press release. “A broad sweep stylistically and production-wise. Not just homage, but a record in its own right.”
The Belair Lip Bombs — Happiness (The 1975 cover)
“It was the first single that came out of their latest record and I just listened to it for like two years straight,” singer Maisie Everett said of the 1975 song the band covered on Like a Version. “I still do.”Continue reading »
There’s something about Jarvis Cocker‘s voice; it’s always fun to hear him tell a story in a Pulp song, and this storytelling has reached a new level as the band appeared with the BBC Radio Orchestra for Radio 2’s Piano Room. The two groups of performers came together for two Pulp songs and a great story-telling song: ABBA’s “The Day Before You Came.”Continue reading »
There is a new British TV series called The Hack about the hacking scandal that led to the downfall of the tabloid The News of the World and for music fans, the opening credits feature Pulp with a new cover. The show’s credit sequence is scored by Pulp’s newly recorded cover of Johnny Cash‘s “The Man Comes Around.”Continue reading »
Though they predate Brit-pop by over a decade, Pulp have been forever linked to the movement due to their hit albums and their biggest hit, “Common People,” which was once voted Britain’s favourite Brit-pop song. Later a Rolling Stone poll found the same thing about their readers, so the song is indelibly linked to moment in time where a band ten years older than their contemporaries somehow broke through and helped define an era.
Taylor Goldsmith, one half of LA folk rockers Dawes, chose this iconic song for his recent appearance on AV Undercover. In the pre-performance interview/chit chat, Goldsmith says it was the story-song nature of “Common People” that drew him to it, as that stands out so much from the other Brit-pop songs. Goldsmith has been listening to and playing it for years when he was younger but hadn’t played it in some time.
As with many solo acoustic covers of big hits, the focus is on the lyrics more than it is in the original, which has a big sound that kind of distract the listener. Goldsmith plays it a tiny bit slower than the original and gives it the folk balladeer treatment. He adds some speak-singing and alters his register to give the song some dynamics it would otherwise be lacking in such a performance.
The result is a pretty performance – occasionally interrupted by the distant sounds of somebody’s children – fully celebrating the nature of “Common People” as one of the great put-down songs in music history. Check it out:
Talking Heads only ever recorded one cover, and when I talked to David Byrne about it for my book, he seemed to have mixed feelings on the subject. “There’s always a little bit of resistance to recording a cover like that because it’s kind of a crowd pleaser,” he told me. “I’d seen it happen before, where radio DJs who pick what they’re going to play will often pick a cover song… So then a band gets known for covering somebody else’s song as opposed to writing their own material. They have to go through a struggle for years to get identified with their own songs.”
Talking Heads recorded “Take Me to the River,” it became their biggest hit up to that point, and Byrne said: That’s it. No more covers. The band never followed it up with a second.
He’s relaxed the rules a bit more in his solo career, most recently covering Janelle Monae’s “Hell You Talmbout” on tour (he says he’s bringing the cover to Broadway, too). And clearly he’s been listening to covers. For his DB Radio show on his website, he just compiled a wonderfully eclectic mix of his favorite covers. The theme, he says, is artists doing the unexpected, from Sonic Youth covering The Carpenters to Miley Cyrus covering Nine Inch Nails. And when the song choice itself may not be surprising – Patti Smith covering the Rolling Stones, say – the arrangements are. Here’s what he wrote on his website:Continue reading »
Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.
Eric Taylor is a former Clear Channel DJ who now serves as an elementary school teacher in Salt Lake City, Utah. He’s been writing news pieces for Cover Me since 2015. Continue reading »
