Feb 142020
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with covers of his or her songs. Let someone else do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Rob Thomas

It’s a special day beyond being the day to eat chocolate and celebrate how lovable you are. Today we celebrate Rob Thomas’s 48th birthday. And what a year it will be. We’re still bopping along to Thomas’s fourth solo album, released last year, but 2020 is blessing us with a Matchbox Twenty tour.

Matchbox Twenty released three albums (including one with some controversial cover art) before Thomas went solo, spurred by his involvement in Santana’s “Smooth.” Thomas helped write the song, but the part was supposed to be sung by George Michael. However, Santana liked what Thomas did with it in the demo, so he brought Thomas on board. Thomas then interwove his solo career with a Matchbox Twenty comeback. Beyond helping with “Smooth,” Thomas was also a songwriter for big names such as Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, and Mick Jagger. Jagger returned the favor, co-writing Mathcbox Twenty’s top-30 hit “Disease.”

Whether you are a ride-or-die Matchbox Twenty fan, through the name change from Matchbox 20 to Matchbox Twenty in 2000, or an appreciator of Thomas’s solo endeavors, these covers will help you celebrate Thomas in all of his glory. It just so happens that these covers are all a bit on the lonely/heartbroken side of the love spectrum, all the better if you’re in a less festive mood this Valentine’s Day and want to commiserate.

Continue reading »

Jan 112011
 

Despite the protestations of rock and roll scientists around the globe, INXS has finally accomplished the impossible: they’ve covered themselves. At least, that’s the impression emanating from Original Sin, their new record. INXS proclaims the album as a serious entry into their studio release catalog, but also as a tribute featuring “several of their signature hits re-imagined by some of the world’s finest musicians.”

Indeed, Original Sin contains 12 new-ish recordings by those loveable Australian new-wavers, but it features significant supplemental work from a bevy of guest stars. The album aims for a strange alchemy that walks the line between “serious new release” and “fun cover record,” and it basically fails at both. Sonically, for instance, Original Sin is a mess. The first three tracks (“Drum Opera,” “Mediate,” and “Original Sin”) slather on heavy bass and synthetic snare in a way that recalls the output of generic ’90s techno bands. It’s significantly disorienting to say the least. After that, the record mercifully switches things up a little with some straight-ahead rock, pop and country balladry. Taken as a whole, though, listeners never really recover from that initial auditory assault. Continue reading »