Dec 152023
 

Follow all our Best of 2023 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

I like to think that badass lady in the artwork up there (done by our own Hope Silverman!) embodies the spirit of this year’s list. Not that they’re all CBGB-style punk songs—though there are a couple—but in her devil-may-care attitude. “Who says I shouldn’t do a hardcore cover of the Cranberries? A post-punk cover of Nick Drake? A hip-hop cover of The Highwaymen? Screw that!”

As with most good covers, the 50 covers we pulled out among the thousands we listened to bring a healthy blend of reverence and irreverence. Reverence because the artists love the source material. Irreverence because they’re not afraid to warp it, bend it, mold it in their own image. A few of the songs below are fairly obscure, but most you probably already know. Just not like this.

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Dec 312015
 
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We’ve already finished the big year-end stories – Best Cover Songs and Best Cover Albums – but here’s a little postscript to take us into the new year. Maybe there’s something here you missed: covers of every song on a classic record in our “Full Albums” series, a deep dive into unusual reinterpretations of a particular hit in our “Five Good Covers” series, or just a bunch of MP3s of Dylan covering Sinatra over forty years.

Cover Me’s Most Popular Posts of 2015
1. Full Albums: Bob Marley & the Wailers’ ‘Legend’
2. Download Four Decades of Bob Dylan’s Frank Sinatra Covers
3. Full Albums: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sticky Fingers’
4. Five Good Covers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)
5. Full Albums: Wilco’s ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’
6. Five Good Covers: The Logical Song (Supertramp)
7. Full Albums: ‘Led Zeppelin III’
8. The Best Cover Songs of 2015
9. Five Good Covers: Rocket Man (Elton John)
10. Full Albums: XTC’s ‘Skylarking’

See you in 2016!

May 082015
 

Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

logical

Written by Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson (with an assist on the second chorus’s vocal harmony by Rick Davies), “The Logical Song” not only has more words of three or more syllables (twenty-seven!) than some bands have in their entire discography; it also has a warning about using schooling as a brickbat that resonates even more post-No Child Left Behind. Plus which, that saxophone break would send any contemporaries whimpering their way back to Baker Street. It was the band’s biggest hit off their biggest album, Breakfast in America; that unforgettable cover model, Kate Murtagh, is 94 and still going, much like “The Logical Song” itself.
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Mar 182015
 

Right now, Peter Katis’ resume reads 365 album credits. His contributions range from engineer, to producer, to mixer, to instrumentalist with well-known artists and bands such as The National.  A seasoned musician, Peter recently enlisted his talented eleven-year-old nephew, Henry Katis, to sing lead vocals on a beautiful cover of Supertramp’s ’70s hit, “The Logical Song” with his band, The Philistines, Jr. Continue reading »

Oct 172011
 

YouTube is filled with amateur cover “artists.” Most stink. On The ‘Tube extracts  the exceptions.

Milwaukee’s Margaret Stutt was well known in Brewtown’s art circles. Deftly dragging her accordion behind her like a frequent flyer through airport security, Stutt seemed to pop up at every artistic benefit in the city. Margaret, better known as Pezzettino, was also just as likely to spontaneously appear around town, shooting a video using some iconic Milwaukee location as a backdrop. Now relocated to Brooklyn, Pezzettino has three albums of original material including last year’s Lub Dub, a collaboration with producer/engineer LMNtlyst. Continue reading »

Sep 302011
 

Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should be. Catch up on past installments here.

A subset of cover artists specialize in taking the songs of the day and turning them into the songs of “back in the day.” Early practitioners included The Templeton Twins and Big Daddy; we’ve offered you the ’40s close-harmony stylings of The Puppini Sisters, the Djangoesque djazz of The Lost Fingers, and rockabilly heroes The Baseballs. Now we add Pink Turtle to that list, a Paris septet out to prove that it still don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing. Continue reading »