Cover me. I'm going in...#7

(Saint Etienne live in 1993, by dexter_mixwith)

I could also put this post in a Charity Shoppin' style deal: Hampstead's Oxfam yielded up a goodly number of bargains yesterday. But I'll concentrate on the CD purchase which interested me most (because although Blur's Great Escape and the Commitments soundtrack are lovely and nostalgic, they're not much new to me), Saint Etienne's Too Young To Die, a singles collection collating 1990-1995 in the world of Stanley, Wiggs et al.

My first dalliance with Saint Etienne came around Christmas 1995 when I got the Hits 96 cassette compilation. You know the sort, a knock-off Now variation, it had (if I remember correctly) a fairly wide variety on it, from Robson & Jerome to Oasis to Cher to a comedy version of the Blind Date theme tune. It had one indie-ish side out of four, and that included He's On The Phone. This summed up Saint Etienne's pop-perfect bedsit tales, the indie-dance stylings combining with sumptuous female vocals leading me to more appreciate the next thing I heard by the band. This was Only Love Can Break Your Heart, just recently revealed to me to be a cover of After The Goldrush-era Neil Young. I stand ashamed. This, this was pop perfection, even more so than He's On The Phone and it slid in so nicely amongst the electro-lite stylings of Happy Mondays and New Order on The Greatest Album In The World... Ever, for the unfamiliar an interminable series of indie compilations.

Listening to the Young original now is strange, as I'm so used to the Moira Lambert-led cover, with its dreamy, hazy feel and sooo 1991 beats. The cover takes up Young's plaintive piano piece and adds a euphoric beauty, those vocals just kind of tucked in at the back. It's the sound of my adolescence, once again, which makes it all the more odd to me that I never pursued it any further. But, no time like the present. Only Love Can Break Your Heart, in all its dreamy prettiness, is track one on the singles comp.

The Music
Neil Young - Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Which brings me to track two, which took me by surprise. The Wratten/Hiscock credit didn't register. But of course, it's the Field Mice's classic in electro-pop format, and very lovely it is too. Saint Etienne is pop in the same wasy as, say, Cinerama was pop: knowing but loving, well-constructed in the pop vein but not intended to aim for the lowest common denominator that today's charts aim at. If you're not massively familiar with the original, the chorus will take you by surprise. But love it and cherish it, the song in all its forms, for its a beautiful. I post the music with a dedication to Colin, wherever he might be.

The Music
Field Mice - Let's Kiss & Make Up
Saint Etienne - Kiss & Make Up

The 'fo
Artist: Saint Etienne
Website: saintetienne.com
Recommended: Smash The System: Singles 1990-99
Label: Heavenly
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Dubstar - The Best Of
Tags: Saint Etienne; pop; electronica; Neil Young; Field Mice

Cover Me, I'm Going In... #6

(photo (cc) zebble)

I almost feel ashamed of myself today, in a kind of tacky, sold-out way. Last time I posted Radiohead, it was an older, very well-known track that most readers and passers-by will already have. This time though, it's a Neil Young cover and if you know anything about the Hype Machine generation will know that it's exactly this sort of thing that'll pull in the punters. Maybe I'll try and post some more obscure Brazilian electronica tomorrow.

But, I'm going to do it anyway. Because, I like the song. So there. It was provided for me by my internet buddy and all round ginge Toby, and many thanks to him. It's actually a good cover, Thom's voice works pretty well on a few of the parts, especially the middle eight there, where he collapses into a sneery shout reminiscent of the "you don't remember, you don't remember..." bit in Paranoid Android.

But I digress, I really didn't mean to talk much about this cover version. Cinnamon Girl was the first Neil Young song I knew and inspired me to get the accompanying album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. This is one of the contenders for his best, I guess, although for some reason I have this and Harvest, and that's it. As to why I've never invested further, answers on a postcard to the usual address, because I don't know. Everybody Knows... is an excellent record, full of some great songs: Down By The River is positively apocalyptic in it's epicosity, and the downtuned, muted guitars prefigure Young's coronation as the Godfather Of Grunge some years later. Cowgirl In The Sand is one of the most enduring songs of his career, and Running Dry has that evocative parentheses, Requiem For The Rockets, an epithet that reeks of a wistful space age nostalgia. But probably the best-known here is Cinnamon Girl, as straightahead a rocker as Young has ever penned.

It's identifiable from the very beginning, with the big ol' powerchord riff bleeding into the harmonised vocals. I love the track, and couldn't pick a favourite bit: would it be the walking-up guitar riff which fades into arpeggio after the chorus? Like Thom, would I pick the wailing middle eight? Or the infamous one-note solo? Maybe the ringing overdrive of the outro guitar? Difficult, but a fun game to play. The song's so classically-constructed that while the consituent components are ace in and of themselves, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

A question I never - but should - ask myself is why would a particular artist cover this particular artist/song. Last time, I felt that Steve Adey just must have had something happen in his life equally as traumatic and far-reaching as Bob Dylan had to be able to sing Shelter From The Storm with such conviction. This time, though, I'm just not sure. Why would someone feel enough of an affinity with Neil Young to cover this? I dunno, sorry. I guess Neil Young's work covers such a wide range that he's touched everybody somehow - whether your oeuvre is acoustic or alt.rock, metal or folk, Young has something in their you can appreciate, so: who am I to question?

The Music
Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
Radiohead - Cinnamon Girl

The 'fo
Artist: Neil Young/Radiohead
Website: Neil's Garage/radiohead.com
Recommended: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere/OK Computer
Label: Warner/Parlophone
Buy: Amazon NY/R
More: Hype Machine NY/R; elbo.ws NY/R
If you like this you might like: Muse - Showbiz
Tags: Neil Young; Radiohead; Cinnamon Girl; alternative; indie; cover

Cover Me, I'm Going In...#5

(photo by eotiv (cc))

I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on the Pixies. It's either really cool, or really not, depending on who you ask. Anyway, my encyclopaedic knowledge of the musical backgrounds and influences (here, for the masochists) covered many genre reference points and was generally a lot of fun to put together. And meant listening to a lot of Pixies = a good thing. I put a quote from Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Thompson at the front, along the lines of, I wish someone would do their doctorate thesis on the Pixies one day. I didn't, I did my undergrad thesis on them, but what he was actually referring to is his wish that someone would take the time to fully analyse the Pixies' often highly cryptic lyrics. A minefield of generous proportions, I'm sure you'll agree.

I mention this because if I ever considered that to be a task beyond anyone's abilities, then Bob Dylan is instant head-explode territory. Are these lyrics completely literal? Completely figurative? Somewhere in between? So many metaphors, analogies, similes, subtilties. They're beyond my comprehension, and unfortunately I can't claim to be a big enough devotee (or any sort of devotee) of Bobby Zee to be sufficiently interested. I didn't even realise the scary depths his fans go to until looking at the words to today's track and the matching comments. Dissections for Shelter From The Storm, from Blood On The Tracks, cover subjects such as religion (including Judaism, Christianity, paganism), war, drugs, divorce, prostitutes and Bakuu-Met, the one-eyed Persian God of death and dying. Riiiiight.

Anyway, it's an interesting song, and when you read the lyrics, ripe for debate. Typically apocalyptic, it's told like a story, each stanza ending in "'Come in', she said, 'I'll give you shelter from the storm.'" It's also a veritable cornucopia of evocative phraseology: "a world of steel-eyed death;" "Hunted like a crocodile, ravaged in the corn;" "the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn;" "I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn."
What seems like the preferred interpretation is that the song relates to Dylan's divorce from his wife Sara Lownds, and when taken as an overall theme it's poignant, even heartbreaking - something that, when compared to my own experience of Dylan, surprises me somewhat in it's heart-on-sleeve, confessional openness. I've always got the impression that Dylan plays on his arcane lyrics and obtuse statements, maybe political, maybe philosophical, but tends to avoid the personal. As the debate shows, the song could probably be taken to mean a lot of different things, but looked at in context, it seems like he's taken a break from polemic.

The cover I've chosen is not the well-known Manfred Mann one, but rather that by my new favourite singer/songwriter du jour, Steve Adey. It's more stark and upfront vocally than Dylan, unsurprisingly given Adey's wonderfully rich voice and Dylan's notoriously awful drawl. Adey manages to pull it off and it becomes bleak and beautiful in his hands, with less of the storytelling style of the original, and more of the personality and soul of the singer. Maybe Adey's had similar circumstances in his life that can be related to the lyrics here, we'll probably never know, but given that his debut album also contains a cover of Will Oldham's morbid classic I See A Darkness, it's probably safe to say he's no easygoing balladeer or crooner.

The Music
Bob Dylan - Shelter From The Storm
Steve Adey - Shelter From The Storm

The 'fo
Artist: Bob Dylan/Steve Adey
Website: bobdylan.com/steveadey.com
Recommended: Blood On The Tracks/All Things Real
Label: Columbia/Grand Harmonium
Buy: Amazon BD/SA
More: Hype Machine BD/SA; elbo.ws BD/SA
Tags: Bob Dylan; Blood On The Tracks; Steve Adey; Shelter From The Storm; cover; divorce

Cover me. I'm going in...#4

I'm taking the contentious, not-posting-the-original route today. Mostly because its the Beatles and Apple are notoriously tetchy about Beatles songs being offered for free, or so I'm led to believe. Anyway, the cover tune is the main point today, and I'm offering one from a band brand new to me, kindly brought to my attention by the good people at Fat Cat Records.

I'm pretty useless at giving promo cd's a timely listen, but I made an effort this time to stick Songs Of Green Pheasant's album Aerial Days on the mp3 player and give it a whirl. And of course, because I'm posting about it today, the day I first heard it, it made an impression on me. The record on the whole has something of the nu-folk about it, but a lot more swirly, trippy psychedelia. In a kind of subtle way though: I'm not talking Love here, I'm talking Simon & Garfunkel a capellas with sitar and just the occasional beat. Even the occasional electronic beat, which is pleasant.

I really like the vocals most about this album. This is where I bring in the S&G reference, because they have that close-miked, heavily-reverbed tone which just suited the slightly woozy state of my head this morning. There's some lovely songs on here, but the reason I'm posting under a Cover Me... banner is, obviously, a cover. Dear Prudence was one of those classic Lennon/guru/India/celebrity hippy moments, famously regarding Mia Farrow's sister Prudence. It's a droney, acoustic number in it's original, and Songs Of Green Pheasant's cover does nothing to take away from the original vibe of the track. Drums are sparse, layered sitar and acoustic wash over you while you soak in the far-away-sounding lyrics. If it wasn't such a well-known song it would be really tricky to make them out, but as literally everyone and their pet gecko knows the song, it's not a problem. Difficult as it can be to record a cover of such a famous tune, I think Mr Duncan Sumpner, for it is he, has done admirably here.

The Music
Songs Of Green Pheasant - Dear Prudence

More Covers: Low/Nilsson; Matthew Herbert/Luna; Prince

The 'fo
Artist: Songs Of Green Pheasant
Websites: Fat Cat artist page
Recommended: Aerial Days
Label: Fat Cat
Buy: Amazon, Fat Cat
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
Tags: Songs Of Green Pheasant; Fat Cat; Beatles; Dear Prudence; Simon & Garfunkel; cover

Cover me. I'm going in...#3

(Photo by Ergun&Aytaç'ın sayfası)

I've never really been able to get Prince. Sometimes I think I'm missing out, sometimes I think it's for the best. There's a part of me that goes around internally yelling purple rain....



purple rain! And another part of me that thinks of the more embarassing scary dwarf connotations. But, it's impossible to deny that the man has written some seriously great songs. Maybe the finest is Nothing Compares 2 U, it's quality maybe only apparent in it's Sinead O'Connor incarnation, and while that song isn't my focus today, it's worth listening. And even better, watching, as the video is integral here.


The main thrust, if you will, today is When Doves Cry, another contender for the sex-munchkin's finest song. That said, I've yet to work out exactly how the sound of screaming might even approximate the sound of doves crying, but then, who am I to argue with a man who has sold approximately a bazillion records. The man's an innovator: using textspeak years before it was fashionable, lyrics include "Dig if u will the picture Of u and I engaged in a kiss," and "Maybe Im just 2 demanding, Maybe Im just like my father, 2 bold." Sorted.

So yeah: good song: Prince is mental: again he sounds better when covered by other artists.

For the sake of balance, here is the original by Prince and the Revolution, alongside Ginuwine's r'n'b stylings. This first cover doesn't add much to the original, in fact stripping it of it's originality. I'm all for covers changing things around big time, which is why I prefer Damien Rice's version. In some ways, Rice's ubiquity makes me want to dislike him, but the truth is that 'O' is a really great album with some amazing songs, and as was discussed with soulbrotha in a recent comments section, some people actually prefer him over Jeff Buckley. Controversial, for sure, but I see what he means. This version of When Doves Cry is great, and segues fairly impressively into Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin. Not so keen on the Ani Di Franco version, but it's here anyway.

Prince - When Doves Cry
Ginuwine - When Doves Cry
Damien Rice - When Doves Cry
Ani DiFranco - When Doves Cry

Previous Cover Me' s are here: Fearless (Pink Floyd/Low) + Many Rivers To Cross (Jimmy Cliff/Harry Nilsson); Everybody Here Wants You (Jeff Buckley/Matthew Herbert) + Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns'n'Roses/Luna)

<$>Prince/Ginuwine/Damien Rice/Ani DiFranco<$>

Tags: covers; Prince; When Doves Cry; Ginuwine; Damien Rice; Ani DiFranco; Sinead O'Connor

Cover me. I'm going in...#2

(Photo by MuseBellamy)

More covers today, the first courtesy of Foewheel, an interesting blog which occasionally throws up something really cool. As in today. Everybody knows that Jeff Buckley is really, really good. Anybody who's anybody will be able to tell you that Grace is one of the finest records of the last twenty years, one that pulls together a searingly emotional vocal style with incredible instrumentation and orchestration, and not only that but some of the most inch-perfect songwriting combined with a couple of the best cover versions you'll ever hear (at least one that supercedes the original by a country mile). Whether most people will be able to give you the same level of enthusiasm about it's follow-up, or at least the half-finished product, is not so conclusive. Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk, though, is a wonderful, wonderful album, different again from Grace, rawer and rougher (due to it's being unfinished by Jeff's hand, surprisingly enough) and featuring some incredible songs: Yard Of Blonde Girls is amazing, and The Sky Is A Landfill is simply epic. Everybody Here Wants You is in the same vain, Jeff's soaring falsetto as intense and as powerful as ever, and the cover here is by Matthew Herbert and Dani Siciliano. Featuring sultry French-accented female vocals (from Siciliano), it's a atmospheric electronic soundscape with percussive acoustics in there as well. It's well worth a goosey gander, and will be leading me to explore a little more Herbert as well, who I've been meaning to check out for some time. The track is from a Jeff/Tim Buckley tribute album on Ashmatic Kitty, also featuring Adem, King Creosote, Sufjan Stevens and Kathryn Williams, amongst others.

Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You
Matthew Herbert & Dani Siciliano - Everybody Here Wants You

Our second brace is an altogether better known song. One of the most well-known of it's era, in all probability. Remember the battle between Guns'n'Roses and Metallica in the late 80's for World's Biggest Band status? I don't. I was five. But battle though they did, there was only ever one winner, and GNR were huge. ...And Justice For All, with it's lengthy metal leanings and widdly/shouty just couldn't compete with the excitement of hearing Appetite For Destruction, something which still holds true today if you're listening for the first time. And the commercial pinnacle of the record was (wooah, oh-wooah) Sweet Child O' Mine, the ballad of the piece, but also an epic with an all-time classic intro and solo. Axl's falsetto is a little more screechy than Jeff Buckley's angelic tones, but then you wouldn't have a choirboy singing about Mr Brownstone and, ahem, the Jungle. The cover here is by Galaxie 500 offshoot Luna, who are releasing a Greatest Hits package soon. Featured on disc two are covers of Everybody's Talkin' (Nilsson), Jealous Guy (Lennon) and Bonnie & Clyde (Serge Gainsbourg), and this quiet gem, approached in the same way that Aztec Camera approached Van Halen's Jump; toned down, stripped down, pared down, however you like to describe it. It's pretty pretty.

Guns'n'Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine
Luna - Sweet Child O' Mine

<$>Jeff Buckley/Matthew Herbert/tribute album/Guns'n'Roses/Luna<$>

Tags: covers; Jeff Buckley; My Sweetheart The Drunk; Matthew Herbert; Dani Siciliano; tribute album; Asthmatic Kitty; Guns'n'Roses; Luna

Cover me. I'm going in...

(Photo by stephanie librarian)

Sometimes covers can be great. Sometimes even better than the original, although these are few and far between. Today's songs aren't really better than their peerless originals, but are worth a listen all the same.

Right now, Low are one of my absolute favourite bands. They thrilled me at their show last week, and the more of their music I listen to, the better it gets. They've done a number of covers: The Smith's Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me, the Bee Gees I Started A Joke, Dylan's Blowin' In The Wind, even the Beach Boys' Surfer Girl. But it was their version of Pink Floyd's Fearless that really piqued my interest. For a start, it's one of my favourite Floyd songs - the original features the Kop on backing vocals, for a start, alongside a beautiful and hypnotic acoustic riff. And although I still come back to Floyd's later canon (The Wall, Wish You Were Here) more than I do their earlier, it's from a great record - Meddle is pre-Dark Side..., and has some of it's clarity and scope in awesome space-rock epics like Echoes, but retains the childlike pop sensibilities in St Tropez, for example. And Low's is a great version, very faithful certainly, but definitely pretty cool.

Pink Floyd - Fearless
Low - Fearless

Covers come broadly in two fashions - the faithful, and the unfaithful. Low's comes under the first bracket, this second really doesn't. You'll know Harry Nilsson if nothing else for Without You - no, Mariah Carey didn't write it, idiot, and Nilsson's version is still the definitive. Here (from Said The Gramophone, originally) is his version of Jimmy Cliff's Many Rivers To Cross, one of my absolute favourites, a real classic from the soundtrack to The Harder They Come. I think I still prefer Cliff's heart-rendingly powerful voice and the original's reggae/gospel backing, but this more raucous rendition certainly has it's own power and interest.

Jimmy Cliff - Many Rivers To Cross
Harry Nilsson - Many Rivers To Cross

Buy Pink Floyd/Low/Jimmy Cliff/Harry Nilsson

Tags: covers; Pink Floyd; Low; Fearless; Jimmy Cliff; Harry Nilsson; Many Rivers To Cross

All Together Now...

Clever thing, this interweb: The Hype Machine is one of those fiendishly clever gadgets which someone should really have thought of before, but just didn't. It keeps a magic tab on all mp3 blogs submitted (submit some! Change the world!), and thusly aggregates all the mp3's posted thereon, creating a cheerful and handy place to keep yourself in the know. Want your latest leaks and exclusive tracks in podcast format? Come hither! Want about a gazillion songs about Kentucky? Go thither! Want to listen to somebody mash up Oasis, Green Day and Travis? How could you not?

Want to find a random Billy Bragg cover of Tracks Of My Tears? You know where to go.
How about Sinead O'Connor doing All Apologies?
Then maybe Migala covering Plainsong will be your bag.

This is going to totally send me over the edge...

goto=mr hopkinson

Sometimes, sometimes there's a man - I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? - but sometimes there's a man who, well, he's the man for his time and place, he fits right in there.

And I'm talking about Mr Hopkinson here. Before you rack your brains (geography teacher? next door neighbour?), you probably don't know Mr Hopkinson. In fact, I don't even know Mr Hopkinson. I do, however, know his computer. Personality-wise, Mr Hopkinson's computer is up there with the greats: Deep Blue with his taunting of Kasparov; HAL "I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave" 9000; you get the picture. Isaac Asimov ventured robots approaching humanity many years ago, but did he predict the heart and soul which Mr Hopkinson's computer pours into his music? Unlikely.

For a start, Isaac Asimov was probably more used to high-class muttonchop trimming than the original 'Fake Plastic Trees', let alone Mr Hopkinson's computer's cover version. Obviously, I'm familiar with the 'head's version, but it took a Spoilt Victorian Child to refer me to Mr Hopkinson's computer's rendition of the track. More can be found on MySpace, including a very funky Fool's Gold.