When mysterious Toronto singer The Weeknd released his buzzy mixtape House of Balloons last March, we listened to “Wicked Games” hoping for another great Chris Isaak cover. As you likely know by now, it’s a different song entirely, and one that’s gotten a few covers itself. The tracklist of his new mixtape Echoes of Silence doesn’t seem to offer any such promise, but as you listen you quickly learn what “D.D.” stands for: Michael Jackson’s classic raunch-jam “Dirty Diana.” Continue reading »
No secret that we love Telephoned. The covers duo of Maggie Horn and Sammy Bananas consistently bring one of the freshest approaches to covers out there. We named last year’s Off the Hook mixtape the third-best covers album of 2010 and now they’ve released another: Good Call. It finds the duo branching out even further to redefine the “cover” concept. Their general M.O. – cover one song while remixing it with another – proves more fluid than ever and the song selection follow suit. Continue reading »
Young Canadian musicians nowadays are definitely giving American ones a run for their money. Cœur de Pirate (a.k.a. Béatrice Martin) and The Weeknd, both early twenty-something solo acts, are making Canada proud with their burgeoning success in the States and across the world. It’s only fitting then that one of these up-and-coming artists cover the other — the talented Cœur de Pirate put her own indie spin on The Weeknd’s R&B track, “Wicked Games,” and even made a music video to go with it. Continue reading »