Earworm: "Wild Horses" by The Sundays

First, I would just like to say that I am now Dr.Queen of Sheba. Thank you.

This one goes in the category of unexpectedly lovely covers--who would've agreed that The Sundays would do beautiful justice to a Rolling Stones song? It's like agreeing that it would be good to make a movie out of a Disney ride, or to put Keanu Reeves in a dystopian cyberpunk epic; it seems a terribly improbable proposal. But I think maybe being The Rolling Stones distracted the actual Rolling Stones from making Wild Horses as it wanted to be. Nothing else in The Sundays' repertoire quite seems to measure up--their other songs are lovely but insubstantial; but achieving aesthetic rightness is nothing to sneeze at, even once.
tags: [Music], [mp3], [Sundays], [Rolling Stones], [Covers]

Earworm/Unexpected Cover: Sun Kil Moon - Ocean Breathes Salty

Kozelek's Tiny Cities keeps surprising me: applying the Patented Kozelek Sound--dreamy, melancholy, and gentle--to a whole album full of bombastic, jagged Brock songs is about as unexpected a move as you could find. And yet somehow, they work surprisingly well. Ocean Breathes Salty is remarkable for this, as well as hearing the furious couplet "You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get/ You get away from me. You get away from me" in Kozelek's melting, meandering tenor. But upon rereading the lyrics, it's an unabashedly sentimental song: "Your body may be gone, I'm gonna carry you in/In my head, in my heart, in my soul/ And maybe we'll get lucky and we'll both live again/ Well I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Don't think so."

I wouldn't have expected that from Modest Mouse, but this is what covers are for: revisiting perceptions of a song through a different lens.

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Modest Mouse], [Sun Kil Moon], [Kozelek], [Tiny Cities]

Spit on a Stranger

Well, this is a surprise. I haven't been listening to Pavement as long as the rest of the world--my exposure to current pop culture started in, oh, '99 or so--and I've only just now realized that Nickel Creek's Spit on a Stranger from This Side is in fact a Pavement cover. Now that is strange.



Not surprising, though--this was the CD that made it clear that Nickel Creek was bored with being the most popular bluegrass band in decades.

Pavement - Spit on a Stranger from Terror Twilight

Nickel Creek - Spit on a Stranger from This Side

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Covers], [Pavement], [Nickel Creek]

Unexpected Covers: Sun Kil Moon - Trucker's Atlas

Mark Kozelek's entire CD Tiny Cities gets the Unexpected Covers Award. Applying the well-known and -loved, mopey-gentle-indie-boy Red House Painters sound to Modest Mouse must be one of the most counterintuitive moves in music history; but it's a successful one, for the most part. Songs that are aggressively rockin' when played by the Mouse don't leave any trace of their former attitude, and become seamlessly dreamy and comforting in Kozelek's hands. It never ceases to surprise me how good, and how different, both versions are.

For the pleasures of comparison:
Modest Mouse - Trucker's Atlas (live)
Sun Kil Moon - Trucker's Atlas from The Lonesome Crowded West

Stream both (M3U)

tags: [Music], [mp3s], [Covers], [Modest Mouse], [Sun Kil Moon]

Unexpected Covers: The Laura Veirs Chorus?

So it seems there's a CD called The Young Rapture Choir; this album is a collection of songs written by Laura Veirs and performed by a choir of school children in Cognac, France. The one track that's floating around is their version of Magnetized; aside from the oddness of hearing Laura's lyrics in a French accent, it's even odder to hear one of her songs done rhythmically straight, with all of her odd leaps and syncopations ellipsized. It's no better or worse than one might expect, I think, but still interesting to hear.



tags: [Music], [Covers], [Laura Veirs], [Choral music]

Cat Power & Decemberists

Note: Cat Power - Wonderwall isn't as good as it should be; the chord work is oddly plodding. Too bad--the song suits her voice and manner.

I've heard variously that The Crane Wife is going to be more mature than past Decemberists stuff (although I'm not sure what that means, really), or that it's going to be even more self-pitying. Obviously I'm hoping for the former; having listened to four tracks, I wonder if "more mature" doesn't mean . . . abandoning their accustomed nineteenth-century, flouncing rhythms. The Crane Wife certainly seems to do that less, and it might pass for maturity.

The Perfect Crime is oddly disco-sounding for the Decemberists; and Colin repeats the perfect crime so many times it loses its meaning. When the War Came almost gets into prog rock territory, with its spiraling instrumentation. It's not the Decemberists we all know of old, but I like it.

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Covers], [Cat Power], [Oasis], [Decemberists], [The Crane Wife]

Unexpected Covers: The Editors - Feel Good, Inc

There's an Editors show coming up at Paradise, so they're on my Upcoming Shows playlist; which is how I discovered an overlooked cover of Gorillaz' Feel Good, Inc. The original is a diabolically sugary addiction, and the cover is up there with Kozelek's cover of Tiny Cities in its bizarre wistfulness.

Editors - Feel Good, Inc from YSI




Relevant tags: [Music], [Editors], [Gorillaz], [covers], Feel Good, Inc

Hah! Ben Taylor - Favorite Nitemare

Finally found a bootleg of Ben Taylor covering Mos Def's "Favorite Nitemare." I don't think it's as good as it was the night I heard it live, but still I gots it, which is something. The blabbering of the crowd is oddly perfect--it almost sounds like a sample in a deliberately-done studio remix thing, it complements the music so well.

In Honor of Kozelek's Show at the MFA

Here are what may possible be the most incongruous original/cover pair ever.

First, Modest Mouse's original track "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes." It's a typical Modest Mouse deal--brash, bombastic, angular, often mispronounced. ("Ponch"?)



And then, Kozelek's cover. Typical Kozelek: dreamy, wandering, wistful to the point of blurriness.



If the MM version is the first you've heard, hearing Kozelek do his gentle number on "Gonna hit you in the face / Gonna punch you in your glasses" can cause something of a mental shock; I give it a 5.5 on the Richter scale.

Dresden Dolls doing Such Great Heights

One of the things I lurrrrve seeing The Dresden Dolls live is doing great, unexpected covers. Amanda & Brian did a cover of The Postal Service's Such Great Heights at the Orpheum show--although actually I think they were covering Iron & Wine's version, since it sounded way more like the I&W version. But it's lovely, so I'm posting a recording somebody made of the same cover in Chicago (usual rules apply: it'll be up briefly, and if anybody has objections to it being up, just email me at the address to the right and ask).


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An Unexpected Cover, part II

KEXP's most recent podcast Music that Matters (volume 10?) reminded me of the awesomely flexible cover Mark Kozelek did of Modest Mouse's Tiny Cities Made of Ashes. Cool thing about the cover is that when MM does it, it's a typically bombastic, angular Modest Mouse song; then Kozelek covers it and makes it into a dreamy, wandering meditation that's not at all surprising on a Sun Kil Moon CD. It's a little hard to take the SKM version seriously at first, but after the shock wears off, they're both good songs. And exactly what I always hope'll happen in covers.

A Most Unexpected Cover

Damn, I wish I had Ben Taylor singing Mos Def's "The Boogie Man Song." That was good.