The Best Who Covers Ever

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Aug 302024
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

The Who

One of the things everyone enjoys about the Beatles is the band’s equality. Take John, Paul, George, or Ringo out of the equation, they say, and the magic is over. Well, the same is true for the Who (something they proved, sadly, after Keith Moon’s death). Only the Who were bigger. Louder. More proficient at their instruments of choice. They could be more powerful, but they could be more vulnerable too. They were one of the best studio bands of their time, and one of the best live bands of all time. And when they were at their peak, they could be the best band in the world.

Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Keith Moon combined to form a force of nature. Starting as one of the great singles bands, they segued into being masters of the LP. Townshend led the way with pioneer guitar playing – both slashing power chords and controlled feedback were part of his palette before any other Guitar God – and a pen that produced not one but two full-length operas for the band (three, if you count the belatedly released Lifehouse), as well as three-minute expressions of defiant angst. Daltrey gave voice to that angst, developing a roar that could surf the wave of noise or blow through it. Entwistle may have looked stoic, but they called him Thunderfingers for a reason. His bass lines were nimble yet forceful, and his sense of the macabre in his songs gave the band even more colors. And what can be said about Moon and his drumming that hasn’t already been said?

The Who’s songs will remain long after they’re gone. Not just for the performances the Who gave them, but for the songs themselves. They conveyed anger, regret, humor, and more, searching low and high within their psyches. The stories they told were both theirs and ours. Here are thirty-five of those stories, telling those stories in ways that approach and occasionally surpass the band that created them.

– Patrick Robbins, Features Editor

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The 30 Best Grateful Dead Covers Ever

 Posted by at 1:30 pm  3 Responses »
Jul 142023
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

best grateful dead covers

I’ve heard it said that one of the curses of having a hit song is that the artist is forced to sing it for the rest of their life the same exact way it was recorded. While that may be true for some artists (certainly for the Eagles), it has not been the case for the Grateful Dead.

Since they released their first album in 1967, the band has never viewed their recordings as sacred texts. Instead they treated their songs as blueprints, starting places to begin the next great jam. Every time they perform a track, it’s like they’re covering themselves.

Take a song like “Fire on the Mountain.” It was originally recorded by Dead percussionist Mickey Hart as an instrumental called “Happiness is Drumming” on his 1976 album Diga. Robert Hunter eventually added lyrics, and the band began performing it on their legendary Spring ‘77 tour. They later recorded a condensed studio version for their 1978 album Shakedown Street, sung by Jerry Garcia. Since his passing, it’s been performed by many Dead offshoot bands and sung by the likes of Bob Weir, Bruce Hornsby, Oteil Burbridge, and, even reggae singer Jimmy Cliff. Each version is so different that I couldn’t tell you what counts as the “original.” One can trace a similar pattern with many of the Dead’s songs through the decades — don’t get me started on “Dark Star.”

Artists covering a Dead song have an invitation to reinvent it, as if at the request of the ghost of Jerry Garcia. Given such freedom, it’s only natural that the Dead’s catalog has inspired countless musicians across genres to put their own spin on the songs. This explains why nearly six decades after the band’s formation, and with the latest incarnation Dead & Company wrapping up this weekend, the onslaught of covers shows no signs of ever, ever stopping. These cover songs guarantee the band’s music will live on long after the last remaining members have passed away.

Here is a list of our favorites…

–Curtis Zimmermann

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Suzanne Vega Covers Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” on New Live Album

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Sep 072020
 

Lou Reed’s 1972 hit “Walk on the Wild Side” feels a bit like a risqué movie. Though these days the plot would barely raise a plucked eyebrow, in the waning months of the Nixon administration it explored all kinds of cultural taboos. Reed tells the stories of several crossdressing young lads as they turn tricks, take Valium, and give head.

Suzanne Vega released a cover of “Walk on the Wild Side” on her new album An Evening of New York Songs and Stories. The live album features Vega singing songs about the Big Apple. It seems like an ideal topic for Vega, given that she helped put the Upper West Side eatery “Tom’s Diner” on the map years before the Seinfeld gang made it their locale of choice.

Performing in New York’s Café Carlyle in 2019, Vega gives the song the feel of a spoken word performance. She starts out slow, mainly backed by the guitar then adds in bits of piano and other instruments as the tune progresses. About two-thirds of the way through, guitarist Gerry Leonard throws in a bluesy solo. A solid take on a classic, even if the subject manner is not nearly as edgy as it once was.

Click here to listen to more Lou Reed covers.

Cover Classics: Deadicated

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  6 Responses »
Apr 282020
 

Cover Classics takes a closer look at all-cover albums of the past, their genesis, and their legacy.

Deadicated

Deadicated is so much more than a great covers album; it’s a great album, period. But more, it also heralded the era for covers albums to be more than a leg up for aspiring musicians to get a grip on the slippery pole, by riding on the laurels of another more established act. This was one of the first tribute albums where the great and the good lined up to salute their peers.

But I’ll get back to that. My reasons for it attaining classic status stemming a whole lot more than from the fearsome reputation of the Dead. As a… well, whatever I was, I loved the idea of the Grateful Dead. But over here in Britain, there was no Deadhead culture as such. They came over, what, once? (Yup, Bickershaw Festival, 1972, as at least one contributor to the album knew only too well.) As an avid reader of New Musical Express and Melody Maker, the UK “inkies”, the musical press within whose hallowed pages they were ensured good copy, to me they were just the coolest dudes ever. I’d also read Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and was smitten.

But where to start? In truth, I was daunted, happier to wear the T-shirt than buy the music. I didn’t want it spoilt by any risk of finding the idea to be less than the reality of the dream.

Luckily a trip to Orlando, circa 1987, solved that conundrum, around about the time of In the Dark. Of course, the big hit single helped, even if there were more filler tracks than killer tracks on the album. Clearly I hadn’t quite got that the Dead were more a live experience than a studio band. Still haven’t, really; to this day, listening to live records has never been a great immersive for me. But, praise be, I loved the studio records, snapping up the back catalog.

When Deadicated dropped in 1991, I bought it, unheard. The roster of artists included an impossible array of my favorites: Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Suzanne Vega, Dr. John, Indigo Girls, Cowboy Junkies and more. Catnip and heaven combined. (Deadicated also served as a benefit for Rainforest Action Network, active to this day, a charity dedicated to the preservation of these vital once macro-climates, shrinking by the day through the scourge of deforestation.)
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Britney Spears and Giorgio Moroder Visit “Tom’s Diner”

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May 012015
 
britney-spears-toms-diner-cover-giorgio-moroder1

Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” has likely popped into your head many times since the late 80s’, when it was first released. With a simple melody, a visual storyline for lyrics, and recurring “da-da DA-da, da-da DA-da da-da DA-da, da-da DA-da”, it’s a song to which possibly a tiny baby could help sing along. Like one of Suzanne’s contemporaries, The Terminator, this song has had multiple lives. Originally released in 1987 as an acapella piece, it was re-released as a bootleg with a dance beat by DNA in 1990, and there have been multiple versions since. Thankfully, Suzanne has had the grace to see these copyright infringements as creative pursuits and has not filed any lawsuits to limit versioning. Continue reading »

Anna Lunoe and Wordlife Do a House Cover of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”

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May 222012
 

Australian born and recent LA transplant DJ Anna Lunoe is a staple at many of the big festivals down under and in the States. Featuring appearances at Big Day Out, Splendour in the Grass, Parklife, Field Day, and Falls Festival, Anna steadily moves up the bill each year.  Wordlife is a project of Sydney based DJs/Kato and Adam Bozzetto, producing “forward thinking club music”. The two forces have combined to transform the a cappella 80s hit, “Tom’s Diner” into a house dance track. Continue reading »