The Strokes’ Is This It songs have been covered to death, so musicians are digging deeper. We heard a killer Angles cover in April from Billie Eilish (more on her in a minute), and now singer-songwriter Andrew Combs takes on this Room on Fire track. His own music leans Nashville Americana, but from the crazy horns here, sounds like he’s been spending time in New Orleans. Continue reading »
In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.
When Grant McLennan died of a heart attack in 2006, far too young at age 48, it was a tremendous blow to the Austalian music world. More than a thousand people attended his funeral, and there was an outpouring of tributes to his life and his work, paying homage to him as one of the country’s greatest songwriters. He was even saluted on the floor of Australian Parliament. But in America, where sales never equaled critical hosannas, only a select few thousand knew to mourn – thankfully, those few (The Village Voice‘s Robert Christgau and The Big Takeover‘s Jack Rabid among them) were eloquent in their explanation of what had been lost.
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Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
“Tower of Song” was released in the late ’80s on Leonard Cohen’s album I’m Your Man. Open to interpretation by zealous music fans arguing over beers at 3 a.m., “Tower” is often thought to be an allegorical song about Cohen’s self-flagellation during his own songwriting (and when you write a song about songwriting, it becomes an ourobourus on many levels). It’s not been covered as often as other Cohen hits, but its allusions to Cohen trying to clack out a song in his invisible prison while the clock of death is ticking makes it one of his most memorable songs. Cohen spent six years of the ’90s in a Buddhist monastery trying to seek enlightenment. But you, dear reader, can achieve the same by listening to these covers below.
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