I’m honestly surprised there weren’t more “Total Eclipse” covers during this month’s total eclipse. Perhaps because our total eclipse was of the sun, rather than the heart. Or, more likely, because this song is hard as hell to sing. Best of the bunch came this garage-rocking version from Ontario trio The Dirty Nil. Gritty and raw, and singer Luke Bentham sells the hell out of it. Continue reading »
As a casual yet growing fan of Sky Ferreira, I was super interested to hear her take on one of my favorite bands of the 80s: ‘Til Tuesday. Ferreira performed “Voice Carry” live a few times earlier this year, and recently gave her fans a treat by posting the cover on SoundCloud. Which she almost couldn’t do, as her label reportedly blocked access to her SoundCloud account for a while. Nothing is ever easy (btw, she has an excellent cover of “Easy”). Hmmm, record labels giving an artist problems? Paging Aimee Mann. Continue reading »
Follow all our Best of 2017 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.
Year-end lists are a time to look back. That’s something we’ve been doing a lot of this year.
See, we turned ten years old in 2017 – practically ancient in internet-blog terms – so we’ve indulged in what we feel is well-earned nostalgia. At the beginning of the year, each of our writers picked the ten most important covers in their life (see them here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). We even listed the ten most important covers in Cover Me‘s life, from the song that inspired the site to our very first Best of the Year winner.
Then, to cap things off, in October we commissioned a 25-track tribute to the cover song itself – which you can still download for free. We love the covers everyone contributed so much, incidentally, that we didn’t consider them for this list. It’d be like picking favorite children – if you had 25 of ’em.
Oh, and have I mentioned I wrote a book? … What’s that you say? I mentioned that constantly? Well, I’m quite proud of it. It’s called Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time and it makes a great Christmas gift and – ok, ok, I’ll stop. You can find plenty more about it elsewhere.
Suffice to say, there’s been a lot of looking back this year. And we hope you’ll indulge us this one last glance rearward before we leap into 2018. Because if it’s been a hell of a year for us, it’s certainly also been a hell of a year for the cover song in general. Some of this year’s list ranks among the best covers we’ve ever heard, period. So dig in, and thanks for your support this past decade.
– Ray Padgett
Editor-in-Chief
Director Edgar Wright’s seat-of-your-pants heist film Baby Driver features a carefully chosen group of songs that are set in perfect time to the action on the screen. City sounds and the movements of the actors and actresses work in time with the music with ease. It’s not often that a soundtrack precedes a movie, but in Baby Driver, it even inspired it.
One of the soundtrack’s standouts is Sky Ferreira’s cover of The Commodore’s “Easy”. Ferreira’s blend of drums, guitar, organ, and vibraphone feels just right reinterpreting the cool, seemingly untouchable vibe of the original. Continue reading »
On the cusp of the release of her debut album, Sky Ferreira, along with DIIV lead singer/boyfriend Zachary Cole Smith, was reportedly arrested for possession of ecstasy and heroin. Not wanting this news to harm the release, Ferreira took to the stage with DIIV to stay active and cover Cat Power’s “Nude As The News” just a day after the reported arrest. Continue reading »
When Kitty Pryde (now known simply as “Kitty”) burst onto the scene a few years ago, she came out full force rapping. After some time under the radar, instead of exploding back into the blogosphere, she has taken on a soft ode to Sky Ferreira with “Everything is Embarrassing.” Continue reading »