Jul 012022
 

They Say It’s Your Birthday  celebrates an artist’s special day with covers of his or her songs. Let someone else do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Debbie Harry

Happy birthday to Debbie Harry, who turns 77 today with all the tough beauty and street cool that she’s had for decades upon decades. While best known as the vocalist and focal point for Blondie, Harry has had a much fuller career, ranging from go-go dancer and Playboy Bunny to author, actor, and philanthropist. Rock and roll is lucky to have her as one of its elder stateswomen.

Blondie knew their way around covers–two of their biggest hits, “Denis” and “The Tide Is High,” were written and performed by others first–so it should come as no surprise that their own songs are strong enough to take on all comers of all genres. You’ll find no new wave in what follows; instead, get ready for rockabilly, Americana, folk, and even a little bit of rap.
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Sep 152017
 

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

enola gay

A discussion about a 1980 synth-pop song that references the atomic bombing of Hiroshima may run the risk of being, unintentionally, too close to current world events. But the popular new wave band who recorded the original version happens to be in the news themselves because of a brand-new studio album, their thirteenth, that dropped on September 1st. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, also known as OMD, formed in 1978 in northwest England. Founding members Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey saw their first significant UK and US dance chart success with the release of “Enola Gay.” Named for the plane that dropped the first A-bomb ever dropped on a city, the McCluskey-penned antiwar dance track was the only single from their second album Organisation, and predated the success the band would experience in the late-‘80s with Top 20 hits like “If You Leave,” “Dreaming,” and “(Forever) Live and Die.”

“Enola Gay” has been ranked as one of the greatest songs of the ’80s by NME, and MusicRadar says that “its almost naive arrangement… includes some of the biggest synth hooks of all time.” But it turns out a good cover of “Enola Gay” doesn’t need a synthesizer. As you’ll see, the song has inspired a variety of cross-genre covers well worth sharing…

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