covers

Sometimes a song’s sentimental associations make enjoying a cover of it almost inconceivable. That song is so embedded in your brain in it’s original incarnation that you just can’t accept any changes.

It’s a long story, but there was a night in high school that involved a girl, fish sticks, a car wash, and finding out that dishwashing soap + flour = glue. It was one of the most memorable nights of my young life. And Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia”, on a nearly endless loop, provided a soundtrack to the evening.

So I’m understandably a bit skeptical when I see someone try to cover the song. Especially a band I’ve never heard of. But California’s Local Natives manage to pull of an excellent performance, in a back yard even. Check it out:

If you don’t know who Regina Spektor is I feel a little sorry for you. She’s one of the most unique and talented ladies on the music scene. Her song “Fidelity” was a breakthrough for her in 2006, and odds are you’d recognize it if you heard it. If you haven’t heard of John Lennon you may as well just stop reading now and go back to whatever planet you’re from. Here’s Ms. Spektor covering Lennon’s song “Real Love”, a song he wrote, but the other three Beatles “finished” for the Anthology 2 album. This may sound blasphemous, but I think I like her version better. Take a listen and you can decide for yourself.

Over the last two decades The Black Crowes have established themselves as a great southern rock band. So it seems fitting that they would cover a classic song about the south. Chris Robinson really channels Levon Helm in this cover of The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.

In case you’re not familiar with this amazing song, here’s The Band’s performance of it from their Last Waltz (and yes, Levon Helm is a badass for drumming and singing so well):

Get ready for a bit of a theme. This week’s cover is young bluegrass songstress Sarah Jarosz covering one of The Decemberists’ grim little tunes: “Shankill Butchers”. The song translates exceedingly well to her sparse arrangement, and she manages to not sound too creepy singing about murderous mob.

Sarah Jarosz – “Shankill Butchers”

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via MOKB

The Decemberists are in the middle of their tour for Hazards of Love. Since they’re performing the album on the tour they’ve brought along My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond. On top of playing the current album it seems they’re taking advantage of the two powerful female voices to work in a great cover: Heart’s “Crazy on You”. Watch and listen as the ladies knock this out of the park:

via You Ain’t No Picasso

It’s been a while since we’ve had a looper in our Random Cover. So here’s a cover of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”, looped by YouTube user John Rockliffe:

Iron & Wine has a new outtakes, covers, and B-sides album out. It’s called Around The Well, and it’s got a ton of gems spanning from the sessions that turned into The Creek Drank the Cradle through today. One of the better tracks is their cover of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes”. Sam and the gang stopped by Jimmy Fallon’s show last night and busted it out:

In case you’re not familiar with the original.

If there was some sort of contest for cool names, Mojo Morgan would be a solid contender. Don’t be fooled into thinking he’s just a cool name though. Mojo has serious reggae street cred. He’s stepped away from his band Morgan Heritage to pursue a solo career, and his solo album Got Mojo? came out earlier this year, and it includes a juicy cover. The Police’s prostitute tale “Roxanne” has it’s own regatta de blanc flair to it, but Mojo pushes it into full-on reggae:

“Red Light (Roxanne)”

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Buy “Red Light (Roxanne)” at Amazon.

You’ve just gotta love technology. Thanks to the magic of the interwebs bands aren’t limited by geographical proximity. You can have a guitarist in Japan, a drummer in Canada, a singer in Virginia. It doesn’t matter. Then, instead of having to get together and travel for shows you can just put the videos on YouTube. Awesome!

There are a few virtual tribute bands that have sprung up, taking advantage of all this technology. The best of the bunch seems to be Virtual Zeppelin, playing (you guessed it) covers of Zeppelin tunes. Really, really well. The singer, YouTube user Jamesfromva, sounds enough like Robert Plant that you almost think he’s lip-synching. And the rest of the band is solid as well, doing a good job nailing Zeppelin’s idiosyncrasies. In all it’s an amazing display of what technology has wrought. Check out a few of their covers:

“Black Dog”

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With their heavy guitars, angst-filled lyrics, and mumbled vocals Nirvana defined grunge. Their music was raw and powerful. These aren’t qualities you associated with jazz, but The Bad Plus manages to pull off a very cool jazzy cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium”.

“Lithium”

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If you like that, go get their latest album For All I Care, and check out their cover of Heart’s “Barracuda”.

It’s been rainy here in Baltimore the last couple of days. Perfect weather for listening to Bon Iver. Or, in this case, two guys covering Bon Iver’s “For Emma”. But if it was just two guys covering Bon Iver, it wouldn’t be that interesting. What makes this version special is the cello. It adds to the mournful tone of the song.

When someone with a style as distinctive as M. Ward’s covers a legend like Buddy Holly you’re going to end up with something interesting. Add a cool animated video and you’ll have a guaranteed winner. Check out this cover of Holly’s “Rave On”, from M. Ward’s latest album, Hold Time.

I can tell you from personal experience it’s intimidating to try and learn a song by a guitar master. So I can’t even imagine how one goes about trying to tackle such a song on ukulele. But that’s just what YouTube user FaceMeltingUkulele has done. He manages a very good cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Lenny”, on solo uke. Amazing.

I’ve always liked Cake (both the band and the baked good). What I really admire about the band is that they never tried to sound like anyone else. They just went out and did what they did. And it was cool. Their album Fashion Nugget is one of the forgotten masterpieces of the 90s. Ok, “The Distance” probably isn’t forgotten, since by my count it got 74.2 billion plays on the radio. But the rest of the album kicks ass.

Anyway, even liking Cake as much as I do, I don’t think I could have been prepared to hear them cover Black Sabbath. But they’re version of “War Pigs” is actually pretty damn good. Check it out:

I’m going to see Josh Ritter tomorrow night. He always puts on a good show, and I’ve seen him work in cool covers before. I’ve never seen him do this one however. It’s his spin on Tom Petty’s “Walls”. Even though it’s not one of Petty’s more popular songs, it’s a good one, and it fits Ritter pretty well. Check it out:

When you think “Iron & Wine” you probably don’t immediately think of Motown. But Sam Beam channels Levi Stubbs in this mellow twist on The Four Tops’ “It’s the Same Old Song”. It’s origin is kind of mysterious (at least on the internets), but from the sound of it I would guess it’s from around the time of The Creek Drank the Cradle.

“It’s the Same Old Song”

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I love it when bands take a classic song and completely re-imagine it. In general Old School Freight Train is a band with their roots firmly in the country/bluegrass/folk world. So it’s cool to hear them take on Blondie’s classic disco-ish tune “Heart of Glass” and turn it into a slow lament. Check out the video for the cover below, where the song provides the soundtrack for a reenactment of the Civil War battle of Rio Hill:

“Heart of Glass” is the opening track on Old School Freight Train’s latest album, Six Years. You can learn more about the album and the band on their MySpace page.

Not the Johnny Cash song. The Reverend Gary Davis song. Still, pretty cool.

via You Ain’t No Picasso

I was fortunate enough to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul & Storm live last week. I was not fortunate enough to see them play this little gem however. Here they are in Toronto covering They Might Be Giants’ “Birdhouse in Your Soul”.

Who needs Soft Cell when you can have Nouvelle Vague? If you’re anything like me you’re not familiar with the band’s act. Turns out they’re known for taking punk, rock, and New Wave songs and covering them with 60s bossa nova flair. Right on. Here’s their take on the classic 80s hit, “Tainted Love”:

I can’t believe nobody’s thought of this before. Two guys, Roger Greenawalt and David Barratt, had the genius idea to put together covers of all 185 Beatles songs, on ukulele, each performed by a different artist, and each accompanied by an essay about the song. They’re releasing a new cover every Tuesday for the 185 weeks. They’ve got four up on their site already, including Peter Buffett’s really nice take on “You Never Give Me Your Money” (a classic underrated Beatles song).

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Along with the covers, Roger and Dave put together a fund raiser for investment guru, ukulele afficionado, and Peter’s dad, Warren Buffett, then interviewed him about the instrument. It’s all a little strange, but it’s a fascinating interview:

The Beatles Complete on Ukulele

He may not be drawn in pencil, but New Pornographers frontman A.C. Newman still seems to find the essence to A-Ha’s 80s classic “Take On Me”. Newman recorded the song for Starbucks’ compilation Sweetheart: Our Favorite Artists Sing Our Favorite Love Songs. It’s a good, if different, interpretation of the song.

“Take On Me”

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via StereoGum

The Hold Steady’s lead singer Craig Finn gets compared to Bruce Springsteen a lot. The band decided to give in to the comparisons and cover The Boss’ “Atlantic City” for the upcoming War Child compilation. It’s an interesting take on the song, though I have to stick with Bruce’s version from Nebraska as my favorite. The beginning of this version is bleak enough for me, but it gets a bit too cheery when the sax comes in. Still, a solid effort.

The idea of one artist recording a whole album of another artists’ songs as a tribute isn’t new. Willie Nelson did it in 1975 with To Lefty From Willie, a 10-song tribute to Lefty Frezell. Now Matthew Houck, aka Phosphorescent, is giving the Redheaded Stranger the same treatment with his upcoming album To Willie.

“Reasons to Quit”

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It doesn’t take much arranging to make a great song sound good. That’s why this cover of Willie’s “Reasons to Quit” is straightforward, simple, and very effective.

To Willie hits shelves (and whatever their digital equivalent is) on February 3rd. If you’re impatient you can listen to some more tracks on Phosphorescent’s MySpace page.

via StereoGum

Not everyone likes Paul Simon. Hell, I’m not a big fan myself. But you do have to admit that the guy writes a great song. Just look at the man’s resume: “The Boxer”, “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, “Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard”, the list goes on and on. So it’s kind of surprising there aren’t a ton of good Paul Simon covers out there. Here’s one that works though. Sunday Music Spotlight alum Deer Tick interprets “Still Crazy After All These Years”, sounding a bit like Dr. John. Despite the fact that it was done in the last few weeks it sounds timeless. Really, really good stuff.

“Still Crazy After All These Years”

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via I Guess I’m Floating

On the surface it seems like an odd mix: a cheesy 80s ballad performed by a modern master of melancholy. But somehow Bon Iver manages to pull off this cover of The Outfield’s “I Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love”.

via You Ain’t No Picasso

A general rule of thumb: any song will sound more suave when sung with a French accent. For example, Yael Naim’s cover of “Toxic” is 137 times cooler than the original. To test that rule, here’s a cover of Michael Sembello’s 80s classic “Maniac”, from the movie Flashdance, covered by two French guys playing acoustic jazz guitar:

Tonight another year silently slips into the mists of memory like mime into quicksand. And to celebrate, here’s what those of us a PCWEI think are the best things to remember about 2008:
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This seems like a fitting capstone to the year. Happy New Year everyone!

For this week’s Random Covers let’s hearken back to Christmas of 1985, when the Nintendo Entertainment System made its way under our tree, and my lifelong obsession with video games was born. Many a hour would be spent with that glorious gaming system over the next few years, playing games that ranged from popular hits like Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda to more obscure, but equally enthralling gems like Solomon’s Key. These games, and many others like them, taught me hand-eye coordination, problem solving skills, and that it’s possible to make good, memorable music using only 8bit electronics.

To celebrate both the holiday season and the glory of 8bit music, 8bitpeoples have compiled a Christmas album consisting of traditional songs crafted out of music and sound effects from classic gaming consoles.

“Silent Night” (created with the NES)

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“Let it Snow” (created with a Gameboy)

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UPDATE:
There are more! 8-Bit Jesus has a whole album full of these too!

“We Three Konami”

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In honor of the season this week’s cover is a Christmas tune. Not just any Christmas tune either. Possibly the best of the breed: Vince Gauraldi’s “Christmas Time is Here”, from A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here’s a great arrangement of the tune for jazz guitar done by Rob Bourassa.

Ray Charles had a knack for taking songs that seemed outside his comfort zone and making them sound like he wrote them. He made a whole album called The Moderns Sounds of Country and Western Music. And it’s good. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that he went on Johnny Cash’s TV show and covered one of The Man in Black’s signature tunes, and knocked it out of the park. Here’s Ray’s take on “Ring of Fire”:

Alex DePue is a asskicking violin player. He’s classically trained, yet he’s won National Fiddle player of the year. He’s performed country music at the Grand Ole Opry and shared the stage with Steve Vai. But this video isn’t any of that. It’s him showing up at an Open Mic night looking like Jeff Bridges Daniels in Dumb and Dumber and flooring the crowd with an incredible mashup of Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” and Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”, all by himself. Awesome.

Visit Alex on MySpace.

What can I say about a video that combines three things I love: hot chicks, ukuleles, and Skynyrd! Here’s Hayley Legg covering “Sweet Home Alabama”:

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, a third-world country, or Nebraska for the last 30 years you know The Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive”. And if you’ve been reading this site for a while you know who The Rosebuds are. But I bet you can’t imagine The Rosebuds, in all their indie-rock glory, covering “Staying Alive”. Well imagine no more:

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Their take is darker, more brooding than the falsetto-laden original. It’s a cool twist on the song that spawned John Travolta, for better or worse.

via My Old Kentucky Blog

I’ve always admired Carrie Underwood more for her looks than her music. She’s got a great voice, but her usual choice of songs doesn’t do anything for me. But right now I’m in the middle of reading Slash’s autobiography, and consequentially on a big GNR kick. And coincidentally I ran across this video of Carrie admirably covering “November Rain”, then absolutely rocking “Paradise City”. Seriously. Turns out Carrie Underpants is a closet rocker chick. Kick ass.

AC/DC is all over the place right now, with Black Ice hitting stores recently, “Let There Be Rock” headlining Rock Band 2, and Harmonix just releasing their very own Rock Band add-on pack. So it’s a good time to bust out this little gem: Matt Mahaffey is a one-man AC/DC cover band, playing “Back in Black”

I’ve got a soft spot for the cello. And who doesn’t love Metallica? So let’s see what happens when you take one guy, a cello, and three overdubs, and have him take on “Unforgiven”:

Not a whole lot to say about this one, except YouTube user artism0nk has managed to turn Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” into a solid bossa nova tune. Kick Ass!

What happens when you fuse a toy piano with a ukulele and a kazoo? A one-man-band that registers a 8.7 on the awesome scale:

Via Monkey Review

It’s been a while since we had a good bluegrass cover. Here’s a good way to get back in the saddle. It’s a cover of Bonnie Tyler’s 80s classic “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by bluegrass cover band Outhouse Explosion:

If they had covered The Dan Band’s profanity-laced version this would have been perfect. Because hearing “I fucking need you more than ever” over a banjo and resonator would be sublime…

Entry #721 in our ongoing series of “Toxic” covers comes from Swedish girly-pop/soul group Those Dancing Days. I dig using a hammond organ for the main riff, and lead singer Linnea Jönsson’s voice suits “Toxic” perfectly. Yet another case of a cover better than the original.

“Toxic”

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via My Old Kentucky Blog

I’m not what you would call a big Billie Joel fan. I’m not really anti-Joel, but I certainly don’t go out of my way to hear “We Didn’t Start the Fire”. Sure, I own a copy of his greatest hits on CD (though I’m not sure where it is, and it’s never made it into iTunes), and I’ll happily sing along to Piano Man played on dueling piano (but only at Pat O’Briens’ in New Orleans). That being said, one of his songs that I legitimately like is “Only the Good Die Young”. Punk cover-meisters Me First and the Gimme Gimmes slip it some uppers and crank the energy up to 11 on this cover, from their latest CD, Have Another Ball!.

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No white boys covering gangsta rap this week. Instead we have a white guy with an acoustic guitar covering a metal classic. Here’s Evan Dando, formerly of The Lemonheads, covering Metallica’s “Fade to Black”:

“Fade to Black”

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It’s amazing how dark Dando makes this song sound, considering it’s just him.

It’s been a while since our random cover was a looper. Which is a while too long in my book. So this week we have a one man mini-orchestra taking on Coldplay’s latest Apple commercial single, “Viva La Vida”. I know, there are a lot of Coldplay haters out there. But chill. This is good. This guy Jay Chu rocks violin, guitar, keyboards, and vocals. So cut him some slack and enjoy.

Go visit Jay’s YouTube channel for all of his covers, and a couple of original songs.

I wouldn’t have necessarily thought of Wilco and Fleet Foxes as being a good combination. But on this cover of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” the two bands meld perfectly. Jeff Tweedy’s verses and the full crew’s harmonies on the chorus rival even The Band’s version of the song. Kick ass.

via You Ain’t No Picasso

Why is Bon Iver so cool? Because whether Justin is singing his own song or someone else’s, he puts every ounce of feeling and emotion into the performance and produces something genuine. Here he covers “Blue Tulip”, from Okkervil River’s latest album.

One of these days I’ll figure out my fascination with people covering songs on ukulele. Until then, let’s keep the madness going by seeing how the great Bob Dylan holds up to the uke treatment.

First up is our favorite teenage ukuleleist, Molly (aka SweetAfton23), with her take on “Don’t Think Twice, it’s Allright”

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Here’s a soulful take on “Toxic”, performed by a Dutch teenager named Hannie (or RockingDudette, if you speak YouTube). When you’re done watching this one, go check out some of her other covers. They’re all good, particularly the Amy Winehouse one.

I’m a little worried that I’m becoming obsessed with this song. After all, this is the second DUTCH cover of it I’ve posted. But I’m going to go with it.

Like chocolate and peanut butter, some things just naturally fit together. Turns out Bon Iver and The Bowerbirds are just like that, but with better harmonies. Check them out covering Sarah Siskind’s “Lovin’s for Fools” at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Amazing stuff.

Via IndieBlogHeaven

We had a nice little diversion last week with The Muppets, but it’s time to get back to the “white folk covering gangsa rap” genre. And this one from and Irish duo called Ugly Megan may be the best of the bunch. The fine folks at the Analogue Magazine Blog probably said it best:

Covering Snoop Dogg on nothing but an acoustic guitar and a Yamaha transcends art; it is, rather, utter genius. I can only imagine Ugly Megan pulling it off with such aplomb. Their hallmark breathy boy-girl vocals and simple melodies rework D Oh Double G to an undiscovered level of tweeness, though an unconscious tweeness at that.

Snoop Dogg + twee = genius.

“Who Am I (What’s My Name)?”

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Ugly Megan on MySpace

This is about as far away from white boy gangsta rap covers as you can get. It’s various Muppet characters singing classical music hits. I have to warn you, I laughed until it hurt watching these. Without further ado, here’s Beaker, The Swedish Chef, and Animal’s take on Bizet’s “Habanera”:

More after the jump…
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Continuing our recent trend of whacked out covers of gangsta rap songs, here’s a bluegrass band called The Gourds covering the Doggfather’s “Gin & Juice”, set to Snoop’s video for the song. Great combo!

I was looking for something completely unrelated on YouTube when I rediscovered Sad Kermit. I had forgotten how great his cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” was. To celebrate my rediscovery, let’s check out his cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”:

For all the covers, head on over to SadKermit.com

Following up on last week’s white-boy-gangsta-rap cover, here’s Nina Gordon’s take on N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton”. You may remember Gordon as part of 90’s rockers Veruca Salt. Now she’s a solo artist, more in the singer/songwriter vein. There’s something strangely hot about a woman using this much profanity, and doing it so casually…

Thanks to Gareth at Analogue for reminding me of this.

I love it when white boys cover gangsta rap. Who didn’t love Dynamite Hack’s cover of Eazy-E’s “Boyz N the Hood”? Here’s Ben Folds, who in case you hadn’t noticed is very white, covering Dr. Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit”. It’s become a staple of his live shows over the years, but this performance is especially cool because of the audience participation.

This week’s random cover is yet another take on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”. This time it’s not a robot playing a theremin. Or a Jack White-led supergroup. It’s a simple, heartfelt rendition from a simple, heartfelt musician. Here’s Ray LaMontagne’s and his acoustic guitar deconstructing the song and rebuilding it better than ever.

Everyone’s favorite incredibly overrated band, Radiohead, recently held a video remix contest for their song “Nude” (from the bafflingly overrated album In Rainbows).  James Houston wanted to enter the contest and came up with a great idea:  use old and busted computer equipment to cover the song.  So he rigged up an old scanner, a printer, some bad hard drives (for speakers), and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum pc to play all the parts a created this video:

The result sounds like a Nintendo version of the song, and almost actually improves on it.  Nice work!

Here’s another in our continuing series of covers of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. This one is performed by Dutch singer Stevie Ann, live in a radio studio. It’s a slow, sultry version, and yet another example of how this is actually a good song once you remove Britney from the equation…

No kooky covers this week.  Just a great musician’s take on a great song.  Here’s Eric Clapton covering Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”:

Prince, the enigmatic Minnesotan, covers Radiohead, the enigmatic Brits.  His take on “Creep” is slightly different from the original, but no less effective.

Punk sounds so much sunnier when it’s played on a ukulele…

Here’s a cover of The Ramones’ “Blitzkreig Bop” by Gus and Fin, two guys with ukes.

I’ll admit, I’m cheating a little bit this week.  It’s not technically a cover; it’s a remix.  But it’s different enough that I’m counting it.  Plus it’s one Sunday Music Spotlight alum remixing another.  How could I pass it up?

Bon Iver’s debut album For Emma, Forever Ago is quiet and introspective. The Rosebuds “Get Up Get Out” is a full on disco-pop song. So you wouldn’t expect Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon to remix the song, would you?

Well he did. And it’s good. Real good. Vernon strips down the instrumentation and adds his own unique backing vocals. The result is a completely different take on the song than the original.

Bon Iver Vs Rosebuds - Get Up Get Out

The remix is part of the collection Sweet Beats, Troubled Sleep. It’s remixes of each song on The Rosebuds Night of the Furies and it was commissioned by Merge Records to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the album’s release. The best part? It’s available for free from their website.

Our favorite ukulele player Molly, aka SweetAfton23, is back with a new direct-to-internet performance.  This time she “covers” The Moldy Peaches song “Anyone Else Buy You” (the song featured in the movie Juno).  I put “covers” in quotes because she kind of veers off course a couple of verses in, substituting other songs’ lyrics for the verses.  See if you can spot the artists she pays homage to here:

I came up with (in no particular order): The Bloodhound Gang, Kanye West, Vanilla Ice, Eminem, Lady Sovereign, Nirvana, Tom Lehrer, Avril Lavigne, and Led Zeppelin.  Brilliant!

I figured I’d pick something topical this week for the Random Cover of the Week. And since both The Raconteurs and Gnarls Barkely made headlines for pushing up the release dates of their respective albums (with The Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely coming out next Tuesday and Gnarls Barkely’s The Odd Couple already out). So what better way to celebrate that with The Raconteurs covering Gnarls Barkley’s ubiquitous “Crazy”?

The New Pornographers have a new live album out today exclusively at iTunes. The album was recorded live at the Apple Store in SoHo, and features a bunch of tracks from the band’s past albums. It also features a cover of ELO’s classic “Don’t Bring Me Down”. Check out the NPs grabbing a hold of the tune and throwing it down on French TV:

There’s a lot of energy in this song, and everything about it just works. In fact, the only problem I can see is that Neko Case isn’t with the band on it. Ah, Neko. One day you’ll realize you’re going to marry me…

Can’t wait to see these guys live in April. Keep posted for a review of the show.

If you told me I would enjoy a chilled-out acoustic cover of The Beastie Boys’ classic “Fight For Right” I would have thought you wnt off your meds. But oddly enough, that’s exactly what this is, and it actually kind of works. Instead of a shout of protest it’s more of an intense whisper of dissent. Or it’s just a really mellow version of a protest song. You take your pick.

You can find more information about singer Andrew Paul Woodworth at his MySpace page.