Screamo Oasis? That’s sure to piss some people off! Can’t wait for the Gallagher brothers to weigh in. This reminds me of Biffy Clyro’s highly divisive “Modern Love” a few years back. Not generally my genre of music, but I do love when a band takes a swing like this.
The Great Leslie — Fix You (Coldplay cover)
For a couple weeks this months, my Google Alerts were taken over by some TV-performance show called Chefsache ESC 2025. Which I’d never heard of, and still only vaguely understand what it is (some sort of Germany-only Eurovision?). It produced some wild covers though. The Feuerschwanz medieval-metal version of “Dragostea Din Tei” must be seen to be believed. But we’ve written about that song before—they released it on an album a couple years ago—so, instead, here’s a group called The Great Leslie performing Coldplay like they’re Franz Ferdinand.Continue reading »
Sia has a long-term commitment to the welfare of animals, by being vegan, vocally committing to various causes, and contributing to art in the field. For her latest single, in conjunction with Humane World For Animals, she has covered Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill.”
The area between Gabriel’s adopted home near Bath in England and the city of Salisbury is not industrialized but not completely agriculturized either. That means there are many well-preserved Iron Age Monuments, including Stonehenge, the best-known of them all. The song, indeed, was inspired by a potential agricultural development that threatened that Celtic, mysterious, world. Gabriel’s connection with that world was emphasized by a spiritual experience on the eponymous hill, close to his home. Of course, it is also widely interpreted as Gabriel railing against Genesis, the band he recently left, for wanting to move away from the mysterious, Celtic-influenced world of Prog Rock, to more modern pop sensibilities. Gabriel has championed many diverse music streams over the years, but in 1977 he was not ready to abandon the prelapsarian world before disco and punk.
An embrace of the mysterious, world before the fall, and modern agriculture’s effect on the planet. Sia has chosen carefully here, in conjunction with her partners. Her version does embrace modern pop sensibilities though, with super producer Greg Kurstin’s big electronic synthesisers filling the soundscape. Her vocals are, inevitably, more earthy than Gabriel’s upper-class accent but they suit the theme well. The official feed receives a donation to the Humane World for Animals, but it is also worth checking out her appearance on Kimmel, where she embraces a more complete vision of the message she wants to get across. Sia has expressed her hope that she can duet with Gabriel on the song at some point, so let’s continue to watch closely!
When Neneh Cherry made that huge international splash in 1989 with her debut album, Raw Like Sushi, it was the result of a big collaborative effort, or, as she put it, “just having fun with my friends.” The Sweden-born and US- and UK-raised singer-songwriter put the record together with producer Cameron McVey (her soon-to-be husband), Tim Simenon of Bomb the Bass, and various members of the Bristol (England) Wild Bunch collective, including DJ Nellee Hooper, and future founders of Massive Attack 3D, and Mushroom. But she also happened to be one of the most charismatic female performers of her generation, who galvanized the 11 distinctive pop/rap/dance songs with her energy, attitude, sexiness, and bomber-jacket cool, while providing the perfect street-tough antidote to the ubiquitous girl-next-door tweeness of Kylie Minogue. She was central, indeed, to a new era of defiant women in hip-hop, who influenced everyone from MIA to Rihanna to daughters Mabel and TYSON, without letting a little thing like being six months pregnant compromise her dance moves on Top of the Pops.
Cherry now cites a collaborative spirit in the revival of such iconic Sushi tracks as “Buffalo Stance” and “Manchild” on The Versions, billed as a Neneh Cherry album while, in fact, featuring a bumper crop of current female artists taking the lead on her tunes. You might call it a tribute album, but Cherry calls it a collection that came about by “asking some of the favorite divine women of our time to record their own versions of these pieces.” She also says it’s the outcome of “a new generation of visionaries” reworking the tracks on the understanding that she doesn’t “own” them. And while the Sushi numbers are the most prominent of the ten included here (with both “Buffalo Stance” and one version of “Manchild” having been released as singles), the assembled artists also offer new takes on material across the singer’s subsequent two albums: 1992’s Homebrew, and 1996’s Man. Continue reading »
Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.
Jack Antonoff gives us serious writer/producer/performer triple threat vibes (a la Timbaland and Pharrell). He’s been in a variety of musical acts himself, including Steel Train, fun., and Bleachers, and been involved behind the scenes in the creation of others’ award winning albums. Just to give you a sense for all of the pies he has his fingers in, Antonoff:
co-wrote and co-produced some songs on Taylor Swift’s 1989, Reputation, and Lover,
co-wrote and co-produced Lorde’s Melodrama album,
co-produced Lana del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell! album,
co-wrote and co-produced the soundtrack for Love, Simon,
co-wrote Sara Bareilles’s song “Brave,”
co-produced Saint Vincent’s Masseduction,
co-wrote and co-produced songs on The Dixie Chicks’ upcoming album, and
co-wrote and co-produced tracks on Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated (including the B-Side version).
We see some of these collaborations either forming out of or being foreshadowed by ties within this cover album.
The “Terrible Thrills” tradition started with Terrible Thrills, Vol. 1, an all female cover album of Steel Train’s eponymous album. Terrible Thrills, Vol. 2 was a follow-up project that again featured all female covers, this time of Bleachers’ first album, Strange Desire. Afterwards, although it does not include covers of the entire album, Terrible Thrills, Vol. 3 followed, containing female covers of four songs from Bleachers’ second album, Gone Now, as well as demos and new versions of songs from the album. (I was bummed to not have a female cover of “Don’t Take the Money.”) This cover album was only sold on vinyl, but you can listen to it here.
Every single one of these covers is great, so I had a hard time choosing just a handful to write about. But here goes…
Since January, Kanye West has been exploring the spiritual side of popular songs at invite-only concerts on the West Coast he’s dubbed “Sunday Service.”
The concept is elaborately simple: take a song that everyone knows, fly in an entire choir (known as The Samples) to a new location each week, and have the choir perform the song with new lyrics and a decidedly gospel feel. Bands such as Nirvana and No Doubt as well as artists Sia, Tracy Chapman, and Chance the Rapper among many others have all had their songs gospelized by West and his amazing choir. “Don’t Speak” becomes “Lord Speaks,” “Fast Car” becomes “Great God,” etc. West has gospelized a few of his own songs, and the entire project is rumored to be a preview of West’s upcoming album Yandhi (release date still unknown).Continue reading »
‘The Best Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.
All week we’ve been running features on every artist inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s unusually strong 2019 class. But the biggest tribute goes to the band least excited about the honor. And that’s maybe as it should be.
Their unenthusiastic reaction – as I write this, it’s not even clear if any of them will show up – reminds me of when Bob Dylan first played Obama’s White House. Bob didn’t come to his own rehearsal, or to the customary photo op with the president. He turned up at the last minute, played his songs, shook the President’s hand, and immediately left the building. And as Obama told Rolling Stone: “That’s how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don’t want him to be all cheesin’ and grinnin’ with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise.”Continue reading »
When 
