In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
Peter Frampton has been everyone and everywhere at once, with that bloody thing in his mouth. He’s also been anonymous and relatively unknown. Neither pendulum peak has stopped this Brit having a career that’s lasted 50 years and counting. Me, I would say a (belated) induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a spotlight well worth acknowledging, in anyone’s book and by anyone’s reckoning. So, let’s have a look at that career. Continue reading »
In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
I volunteered to write this piece a few years ago, but never got around to it. When I offered to actually finish it, our features editor reminded me that he had written a Spotlight piece on The Feelies back in February. But he was game to let me write this, if there was no overlap. Remarkably, no overlap was actually planned. So, here we go, with a second Spotlight piece in a year about a band of, at best, limited popularity. Or, if you prefer, a cult favorite. Continue reading »
As regular readers know, here at Cover Me we put together a Best Covers Ever list every month for a celebrated artist. We’ve recently done the Pet Shop Boys and Sheryl Crow. And before them we did the biggie – The Beatles – and before them, Bob Dylan! But every now and again, there’s a particular genre that’s crying out for the Best Covers Ever treatment – and this month it’s the Dark Genre. It’s goth!
So why now, you ask? Are goth covers really a thing? And why don’t Alien Sex Fiend or Fields of the Nephilim have their own Best Covers Ever features?
Fair questions, all. First off, goth music is everywhere right now. It may have emerged out of the UK post-punk scene and enjoyed its most innovative period from 1980 to 1982, but it’s now the reason we have Whitby Goth Weekends in April and November (well, that and Count Dracula), World Goth Day on May 22, and goth nights down the Hatchet Inn in Bristol most nights, particularly Thursday. It’s also why we have heaps of goth books on the market right now, from John Robb’s The Art of Darkness to Lol Tolhurst’s Goth: A History and Cathi Unsworth’s Season of the Witch, all trying to explain goth’s lasting influence as a musical subculture: the fixation with death, the dark theatricality, the Victorian melodrama, the leather, the thick black eyeliner, the fishnet tights, the deviance, the sex, the deviant sex, and, of course, spiders.Continue reading »
Liam Gallagher and John Squire, respective cornerstones of Britpop royalty Oasis and The Stone Roses, embarked on tour this week in support of their new album, the accurately titled Liam Gallagher & John Squire. Although Liam had warned that the duo would not be dipping into their back catalogues on this run, he did tease that they might break out a surprise cover or two. He and John delivered on that proposition in Glasgow this past Wednesday, serving up a spirited take on The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”Continue reading »
Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.
Really? As in, surely Cover Me must have talked about “Johnny B. Goode” before? Well, I’ve searched, and it seems “Memphis, Tennessee” is the only Chuck song to show itself on this platform. Of course, it may just feel like we’ve given Johnny the once-over twice on account of ol’ Charles Edward Anderson Berry wrote so many of the standard templates of rock (and roll). I mean, it isn’t as if nobody’s ever tried a cover, it difficult to imagine any guitar band ever not taking a crack at it. Is it not compulsory that every band of spotty youth, convening in a reluctant father’s garage, include it in their nascent set of tunes? Hell, I bet it casts a longer shadow than even “Louie, Louie,” always previously the lodestone at such gatherings. Secondhand Songs, still the wiki for cover lovers, suggests 328 versions, which, given the site’s understandable inability to know or find every single itty bitty rendition, suggests possibly a fair few more. (Indeed, as ever, we rely on you to let us know some more good(e) covers in the responses.)
In the Spotlight showcases a cross-section of an artist’s cover work. View past installments, then post suggestions for future picks in the comments!
I tell every kid, get in a cover band. It teaches you chops, it literally teaches you why some songs are classics, and it teaches you how to navigate a working band. With songwriting, there’s something to that idea of stealing from the best. You’re only as good as your references. And I pride myself on my references. I have tried to emulate the greatest rock stars and songwriters in the world. I try not to steal verbatim, but if they’ve influenced my work at all, I take a sense of pride in that. – Sheryl Crow, 2017
Sheryl Crow’s released a good hundred or so cover songs, so it’s plain she knows her way around them. She isn’t very adventurous with them, though – most of her covers are of songs or artists that are radio favorites, and they tend to sound very similar to the originals.
Here’s the thing, though. Crow saturates her covers with her essence, so much so that they just feel like Sheryl Crow songs. They reap the same success, too – “The First Cut Is the Deepest” is one of her biggest hits, and her version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” won a Grammy. They never feel lazy, either. Crow is a professional, and she knows how to bring her affection for these songs across without phoning it in. Bottom line: If you like Sheryl Crow, you’ll like her covers, and you’ll be justified in doing so.
