Jul 222024
 

Raveonettes SingI don’t know about you but I just love the fusion of ’60s pop and scuzzy walls of post-punk guitars: think Jesus & Mary Chain, My Chemical Romance and, of course, da brudders Ramone, melody and noise in a perfect pairing. Arguably, the Cramps started off this attractive meeting of opposites back in the mid 70’s. The baton has since passed to and fro, between froth and feedback, so often as to make it sometimes difficult to where it all started. (The answer, by the way, is probably Phil Spector.)

Denmark’s Raveonettes, the not-husband & wife duo of guitarist/vocalist Sune Rose Wagner and bassist/vocalist Sharin Foo, know this. They’ve spent their career allying close two-part harmonies into a scaffold of guitar noise. With their last album having been released in the Mesozoic era of 2017, many had deemed the band lost in action.

But Cleopatra Records knew otherwise. That L.A. institution has been the home of innumerable records that record and relate the co-terminosity of opposing genres. In fact, they featured the Raveonettes’ version of “The End,” that epic Doors song, etched forever into Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, for their somewhat limply titled Indie Goes Pop compilation. Now they have encouraged the duo to embark on a set of ’60s covers. Given the pair started off singing Everly Brothers songs in the clubs of Copenhagen, this isn’t too much a stretch. The love for the material still remains extant within their performance, if a little dialed back, on The Raveonettes Sing….
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May 182012
 

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

Camera Obscura have carved out a reputation as standard bearers of Scottish independent music, continuing the good work of the mighty Belle & Sebastian by flying the flag for Glaswegian culture since the late ‘90s. Renowned for their trademark tuneful indiepop, mixing lo-fi vocals and a dash of melancholy with retro flavours of ‘60s Motown and the occasional splash of country, it’s unsurprising that they are a goldmine for unexpectedly brilliant covers. Continue reading »

May 052011
 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Phil Spector collection Back to Mono (1958–1969), the landmark set that compiles all of the early productions by the one-in-a-million wunderkind. Phil Spector’s abhorrent personal life and criminal history notwithstanding, the man’s influence on American music is indisputable.

So much in music circles back to this now-infamous sociopath. Music seems to channel Spector now more than ever: She and Him spearhead a resurgence of doo-wop sounds; Best Coast rebuild the Wall of Sound in fuzzier, shoegaze form; and, while it is no longer 1999, there are still millions of teenage generations to come that will have to see Top Gun and download the song all over again. So let’s celebrate the music that defined a generation and changed the landscape of popular American music forever. Here are five of the most well-known and oft-cited covers of classic Phil Spector productions. Old and new, these tracks have contributed to the ongoing resurrection of the Wall of Sound. Continue reading »