Alex Lahey — Rock & Roll Queen (The Subways cover)
Four years ago, Australian singer/songwriter Alex Lahey topped our year-end list with a truly phenomenal cover of Faith Hill’s 1998 hit “This Kiss.” She made the Top 10 again in 2023 singing Mama Cass’s Make Your Own Kind of Music.” At this point, whenever Lahey drops a new cover, we’re immediately interested. Her latest, the b-side to a new single supporting trans rights, tackles indie-rockers The Subways 2005 single “Rock & Roll Queen.” Unlike some of her other covers, Lahey doesn’t change it that much (no need to make the already loud-and-rocking song louder and rockier like “This Kiss”). Still, it rips.Continue reading »
Still Wave unveiled a mesmerizing cover of Taylor Swift’s “Fortnight.” The cover and music video were released this month as part of their experimental EP Post Atomic Love. The Rome-based group creates a haunting reinterpretation of the atmospheric original. Still Wave describe their genre as “pop post-gaze,” a mixture that blends shoegaze, post-metal, doom, and gothic textures. The band’s ability to mix emotionally intense sonic landscapes with gloom and melodic intimacy places them solidly in Europe’s underground post-rock scene.
For this cover, gothic-tinged guitars and ghostly vocals intensify the lyrics, turning Swift’s polished production into something rawer. It’s like the band took the gloss off an emotionally heavy song. The cover hints at a catastrophic sadness, missing the delicate, careful nature of Taylor Swift. The tone is perfect for the EP’s post-apocalyptic undertones. With this haunting take on “Fortnight,” Still Wave has recast a modern pop hit into a cinematic, post-atomic elegy. Even contemporary chart-toppers can find new audiences through radical reinvention.
Post Atomic Love dives into the theme of modern love in an era of emotional disconnection. The Swift cover sits alongside covers of Tears for Fears’ “Watch Me Bleed” and Dissection’s “Where Dead Angels Lie.” On Bandcamp, Still Wave said of the EP, “It’s all about love here. Sing these songs with us: we are all lonely and isolated, trying to share some missing feelings since the atomic bomb.”
Chewy Rodriguez — Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift cover)
This beautiful performance aired on South Dakota Public Broadcasting and, as of this writing, has 81 views, half of which are mine. (To be fair, presumably more people saw it when it aired on actual TV). But this Sioux Falls singer-songwriters beautiful Taylor Swift cover deserves a far bigger audience. It’s simply done, no frills or gimmicks, but he sells the hell out of it.Continue reading »
Cher’s pushing 80, but, as seen most recent on the SNL 50th concert, she can still command a stage like nobody’s business. At the recent Love Rocks benefit concert in NYC, she reprised her ‘90s “Walking in Memphis” cover, complete with full Elvis costume, pompadour very much included.
Dååth ft. Paul Masvidal from Cynic – Run (Air cover)
A heavy-metal cover of the least heavy group of all time (they are French, after all): Air. Dååth (you “know it’s heavy with that punctuation in the name) writes: “Our version of “Run” has been a long time coming. It’s a creepy, weird song I’ve wanted to cover since I first heard it… This is a weird song. If you haven’t heard it, listen to the original, then ours. To do it justice, we needed an unconventional mix that could also go full metal. Gautier Serre, of Igorrr, was the obvious choice. If he can handle Igorrr, he can handle this—and being French, he already knew the song. The result is truly unique. If you’re expecting pure extreme metal, you might be disappointed—and that’s fine, because we do what we want.”Continue reading »
One of my favourite things is seeing bands play tribute to other musicians as a part of their live shows, something Coldplay have a good track record of doing. While performing in Vienna, lead singer Chris Martin made reference to Taylor Swift‘s cancelled shows in the city, and asked Maggie Rogers and two dedicated Swifties from the audience to join him in a cover of Swift’s massive hit “Love Story.”Continue reading »
Weird Al Yankovic has been quiet on the new music front for about a decade after Mandatory Fun, his last studio album, was released in 2014. So his newest single “Polkamania!” has smashed together some of the last decade’s biggest hits, all in the style of his signature medley genre, a polka.
But which songs are covered in Weird Al’s “Polkamania”?
There’s not much to say about this song sonically – all the covers are straightforward, but done in a polka style, with the exception of “WAP,” which cleverly utilizes sound effects to get the same message across.
Definitely one the Weird Al fans will love, but there’s enough silliness in here for everyone else as well.
