Top 10 Unlikely Covers

I'm a big fan of artists stepping out of their comfort zone - or maybe it's really our comfort zone - and covering a song that would seem to be out of their bailiwick. Exploiting what could be called the "sincerity gap," wherein a song that seems kind of like a joke is given a new level of emotion, is often a key to success. For exhibit A see number one on my list of Top Ten Unlikely Covers. What are your favorites?

Aztec Camera - Jump Maybe I suck because this is my favorite Aztec Camera recording and I know they are a bit of a sacred cow. I'm a big Van Halen fan (DLR years only!) so I was delighted to hear a completely different approach to the splashy, synth-driven MTV monster that was Jump. The best thing about this was the absolute lack of irony. Something tells me Roddy Frame likes VH as much as I do. Still waiting on that Hot For Teacher cover.

Natalie Prass - Caught Up In The Rapture

As I noted in my review of her show at Bowery Ballroom last year, the Spacebomb chanteuse is a sucker for slinky R&B. On this version of the Anita Baker smash from 1986, she put her mouth where her moneymaker is. Wait, that didn't come out right...just listen.

Sly & The Family Stone - Que Sera Sera
After There's A Riot Going On Sly's rep started going downhill, with blown concerts and "unreliable" behavior alienating fans, critics, and collaborators. He didn't necessarily help his cause by covering a song made famous by Doris Day, sung here by sister Rose Stone. But when he wails on the chorus, it sounds like he means every word. 

The Wailers - Sugar Sugar
While the Monkees were a fake rock group that became real, The Archies, being cartoons, never had that opportunity. They weren't bad, they were just drawn that way. But the songs were real enough and Sugar Sugar was as good as any other bubblegum song. After all, Jeff Barry wrote most of the songs for the real groups, too. But when The Wailers put it to a hip-swiveling rocksteady groove it took on a different connotation. A couple of years later Bob was singing about Marcus who had candy tar all over his chocolate bar in Kinky Reggae - wonder where he got that idea?

Radiohead - Nobody Does It Better
This is firmly in the Aztec Camera camp. You can just tell that Thom Yorke thinks this classic James Bond theme by Carly Simon is a fabulous song. He really gives it his all and it helps that it fits his voice like a glove. I wonder if there's a studio recording of this somewhere in the Radiohead archives.

Emmylou Harris - May This Be Love
We probably have Daniel Lanois to thank for getting Emmylou to explore this deep cut from Are You Experienced? No matter whose idea it was, it is just gorgeous and invites a whole new understanding of Hendrix's songcraft. 

The Isley Brothers - Love The One You're With
By 1970, The Isley Brothers had earned the right to do pretty much whatever they wanted, having had their first hit in 1959. Still, one would not have pegged them to be Stephen Stills fans. One thing that's cool about their version is that they play it fairly straight, adding just a little grit to the original, which was already little funky, and reveling in the harmonies.

Hole - Credit In The Straight World
There is something so self-contained, even precious, about the one album released by Young Marble Giants, that until I heard this it was unimaginable that someone would cover one of their songs. It was a canny choice for Hole, however, as it fit their sound nicely while also providing some more melodic colors to Live Through This. It was also a nice bit of curation and likely introduced many people to the genius of YMG.

Yo La Tengo - Friday I'm In Love
While my favorite Yo La Tengo usually involves Ira Kaplan wailing on his guitar, they do have a nice sideline in covers, exemplified by their lovely folk-rock take on this 90's classic. The original version by The Cure seemed a little unlikely as well, pushing Robert Smith and co. toward the environs of shimmering pop.

The Staples Singers - Slippery People

While the lyrical content of the Talking Heads song might seem a little more oblique than the average gospel song, there was no doubt about the origin of those call and response vocals. The Staples Singers were already legends when they put this out but their cover version reawakened interest in their career for a whole new audience. In any case, Mavis Staples must have really connected with the song as she still performs it regularly.

Bonus Cut:

Freddie Hubbard - Cold Turkey
Here's one from another side of the aisle. Jazz musicians covering pop songs goes back to at least the 30's and we even had folks like Ramsay Lewis giving the treatment to Beatles songs in the late 60's. But hearing hard-charging Miles Davis protege Hubbard take on John Lennon's heroin-withdrawal nightmare of a song has a bit more of a frisson than the usual pop-jazz stylings you would expect. Unlike some other songs in this vein, I doubt this was a bid for pop success!

Unfortunately, even in today's streaming-centric world, there is no one place that I could find that had complete versions of all these songs. This YouTube playlist is the best I could do...What are your favorites?

The Beatles Thing

"But the Beatles thing is over," Paul McCartney declared in a Life Magazine interview 44 years ago this week. While it was not the official notice of the end, careful readers would have taken note of the finality of his statement and been seriously concerned. And it was true - privately the Fab Four had already determined that they would no longer continue as a group. But the Beatle thing is never really over, is it? Here's some thoughts on why that might be.

I can understand how easy it is to take The Beatles for granted. After all, my mom used to wake me up with a 45 of I Want To Hold Your Hand, which puts them very nearly at the earliest point of my nurture - close enough that I now consider them part of my nature.

Perhaps they are so extraordinary that's it's easier to see them as part of the furniture, so to speak, than to try to grapple with what they really achieved. "The blues is a chair," John Lennon said, so he knew something about music as furniture, but unlike the blues, the universe of The Beatles was essentially created by four very young men who followed their (both creative and commercial) muses never suspecting - at least not until the end - that they were essentially creating a one-band genre.

A defining feature of that genre is that anything went - add a string quartet, put the tape on backward, strip it back to naked human anguish, get silly, sing in French, make a collage, base your lyrics on a poster or a box of chocolates or the Tibetan book of the dead, get angry, write songs, get folky, sing other people's songs, etc. That's why I always say you can use the Fab Four to get exposed to nearly everything music can do. Listening to their music can be the start of a love affair with music, one that the listener can pursue down countless avenues. "I like the way that song makes me feel - where else can I find that?"

This far along from their demise, people are still trying to parse The Beatles, to see where they fit alongside other musicians and separate the strands of what made them work. "How good were The Beatles as lyricists?" or "Where does George Harrison rank as a guitarist?" are typical starting points for articles or blog posts. In the first example, if you examine the lyrics in the cold light of the dissection table, you might find some of them wanting. Not as deep as Dylan, or as clever as The Kinks or The Who, or as dark as The Doors or The Rolling Stones - to name only some of their contemporaries. As for the second example, while his style is quite distinctive and his technique excellent, I wouldn't put George in my top five guitarists.

But the point is, they can't really be parsed. It was the hydra-headed foursome of them that made it all work and the unified quality of their output that astonishes. There is much we know now about the interpersonal difficulties they had, but that just makes it all the more remarkable. More than any other band, it is impossible to imagine The Beatles doing what they did with anybody other than John, Paul, George and Ringo. The dream of human unity - always just out of reach - is exemplified by their remarkable music. Even photographs of the four of them are inspiring.

"Not liking The Beatles is like not liking the sun," someone once wrote in Rolling Stone. While I believe that it takes all kinds to make a world, part of me agrees with that statement and maintains a mild suspicion of those who say flat out "I don't like The Beatles." Then again, being jaded by them might be worse, so dust off that musical furniture and try to listen to The Beatles as if you've never heard them before.

One, Two, Three, Four, Cough.


Then came Revolver. I got it for my birthday the year after the three 45's that started my collection. This was obviously a different proposition entirely from the Tommy soundtrack. Here was an album that took you through moods and past musical milestones you didn't know existed, ending with the ever-astonishing Tomorrow Never Knows. TNK, as the Beatle geeks call it, is built on a rhythm Ringo must have heard in a dream, as there was no precedent for that beat in rock & roll. Jerry-rigged on top are all sorts of drones and backward instruments. Then comes Lennon's voice, sounding (as he requested) like the Dalai Lama preaching from a mountain top, singing about the end of the beginning. For me, it was the beginning of the end...a large part of my life became devoted to music.

A couple of other things I love about this record are that outrageous countdown and cough that lead into Taxman--talk about cojones. That song also features one of the most blistering guitar solos in the Beatles catalog. The solo is so brilliant they simply repeat it on the outro, as if to give you another chance to hear it. How amazing to learn that Paul was behind that stinging lead! And how generous of George to give him the spotlight the first and last time he was given the lead track on a Beatles album. It could have been Paul exercising his droit de seigneur but I like my idea better.

It would be many years before I would discover the British version of Revolver, which ups the factor of greatness by many times (Doctor Robert, I'm Only Sleeping - killer!), but nonetheless I was hooked on music and records forever. As soon as I was old enough, I began going to record stores as often as possible and amassing records at a torrid pace. Now I have hundreds of pieces of black plastic, shiny silver discs and mp3 files. Let's just say that my wife is VERY understanding!

What record sucked you in and made you a music fanatic? Does that music still fascinate you?


Next time: The year in disappointments.