May 192020
 

That’s A Cover? explores cover songs that you may have thought were originals.

Salt N Pepa

Salt ‘n’ Pepa were change-makers from the beginning. Can you believe their very first track on their very first album was the immortal “Push It”? The group paved the way for female rappers, picking up the first Grammy for a female rap act in 1995 for the song “None of Your Business.” That award-winning song was part of a powerhouse record, Very Necessary, the group’s fourth album that included other gems such as “Shoop” and “Whatta Man.” The latter was a team effort between Salt ‘n’ Pepa and En Vogue, another up-and-coming female trio who had just come off of hit singles like “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” and “Free Your Mind.”

The music video for the song won the trifecta of MTV Video Music Awards in 1994: Best Dance Video, Best R&B Video, and Best Choreography in a Video (see why the video was such a hit below). However, you may not know that Salt ‘n’ Pepa reimagined this tune after it stirred up some drama for its original artist.

Continue reading »

Oct 262017
 
free covers album

Ten years ago today, I had a whim.

I was studying abroad one semester and found myself with a lot of free time – school work was light, and a college student’s budget limited my international explorations – so I decided to start a blog. A second blog actually, since for several years I had run a personal blog of concert reviews and bootleg downloads called Dylan, Etc (it had more “Dylan” than it did “Etc”). I’d fallen in love with the cover song after hearing Bob Dylan (who else) play a revelatory cover of “Summertime” on his short-lived radio show. I’d already hosted a Cover Me college radio show, and decided to expand us to the World Wide Web.

These were the days of the so-called “MP3 blog,” which included a vibrant subgenre of cover-songs blogs. That’s right, I’d like to claim credit for inventing the category, but I didn’t – not even close. RIP to Copy Right?, Cover Freak, Fong Songs, and the rest of the pioneers – and shoutout to our fellow survivors from that era, Coverville, which was releasing podcasts before most people knew what that word meant, and the folk blog Cover Lay Down, which began around the same time as us.

A lot has changed over the past decade. We’ve published 3,564 posts as of this one. Oh, and did you notice the pronoun change there? Cover Me is no longer an “I” – it’s a “we”, with over 60 writers contributing over the years. We’ve grown from an ugly Blogspot to our spiffy own domain (which is overdue for a redesign itself, frankly). And in case the large banner ads all over the site weren’t clue enough, I just released a book also called Cover Me, which – back-patting alert – Variety called “one of the best multi-subject music books to come down the pike in years.”

We wanted to do something special to celebrate our tenth birthday. And we wanted to celebrate not just ourselves, but celebrate the cover song itself. So we put together this little album Cover Me Turns 10: A Covers Tribute to Covers as a gift to our readers. We contacted several dozen of our musician friends and asked them to cover a cover. That is, to honor the many great songs we might not even know without an iconic cover – Aretha Franklin reinventing Otis Redding’s “Respect,” Quiet Riot amplifying Slade’s call to feel the noize, Prince learning that nothing compares 2 Sinéad O’Connor.

We’re honored that so many of our favorite musicians contributed, and frankly speechless at how great a job they did. So speechless, in fact, that we asked them all to introduce their own work with a few sentences. A million thanks to all of them, and also to Cover Me writer and art whiz Sean Balkwill for designing the lovely – ahem – cover. The whole thing is free to download at Bandcamp until downloads run out, and free to stream forever.

Enough chatter from me. For ten years this blog has been all about celebrating the music and we’re not going to stop now. Thanks for taking this journey with us.

– Ray Padgett
Cover Me Founder Continue reading »

Mar 272012
 

Quickies rounds up new can’t-miss covers. Download ‘em below.

Last month, the Rosebuds covered the Talking Heads. The choice was a natural – both groups deliver poppy, off-kilter melodies that worm into your head for days. Salt-n-Pepa, on the other hand, haven’t influenced Ivan and Kelly Rosebud one iota. They just re-released it for free on their new Bandcamp.
MP3: The Rosebuds – Push It (Salt-n-Pepa cover) Continue reading »

Jan 052012
 

The second season of Portlandia premieres on IFC tomorrow (watch the first episode here) and last month, stars Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen toured a music/video/chat variety show around the country to promote it. At their San Francisco performance, local duo Thao + Mirah joined for the finale: a cover of Salt-N-Pepa’s 1986 smash “Push It.” Telekinesis’ Michael Benjamin Lerner plays drums. Continue reading »

Jul 202011
 

Last September, Justin Timberlake appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and blew all our minds with a hip-hop medley. Timberlake appeared on Fallon again last night and gave the crowd what they wanted: a sequel. Continue reading »