Tag Archives: covers

Get In Line

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The second part of my list of favourite albums from last year continues with five acts that were already familiar to me from previous years. I’m a big fan of the debut album by Fleet Foxes and I was always going to like their second record. I don’t like it as much as their first one, however, and I have to admit that it’s taken me a while to get into it. It doesn’t have any standout tracks like White Winter Hymnal on the previous album, but it works well as a consistent collection of original songs and that’s why it makes it onto my list

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Ladies First

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I’ve been meaning to put up a list of my favourite albums of 2011 for a while now, but I’ve only gotten around to it this week. I didn’t think 2011 was one of the best in recent years for new releases, though I did have a few dozen worthy efforts on my final list. When I narrowed it down to ten I noticed that it was evenly split along gender lines, so I’m going to present it in two parts

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Late Nights With The Power Pop

The American singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet celebrates his 47th birthday today. I first heard of him in 1991 when he released his breakthrough album, Girlfriend, a record I’ll be looking at when it reaches its 20th anniversary in a few weeks. The type of music Sweet performs belongs to a genre known as power pop, which feature vocal harmonies and strong melodies as well as memorable guitar licks. Groups like The Beatles and Big Star have exerted the biggest influence on the genre. Sweet has covered these bands throughout his career and, with the help of Susanna Hoffs, released two fine albums of songs from the sixties and seventies. Their version of Who Knows Where the Time Goes? is taken from the first of those and features Hoffs on lead vocals with Sweet providing harmonies and the guitar parts. It’s preceded by three songs that Sweet has contributed to tribute albums over the years. Big Sky appears on This is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray Davies. Let Me Be the One is from If I Were a Carpenter. And his quite effective take on the theme from Scooby Doo is part of a musical celebration of Saturday morning cartoon shows. The final song is Death Cab for Cutie’s acoustic version of the opening track from Sweet’s 100% Fun album. Sweet’s just released a new album called Modern Art and you can download a free track from it at his website. From what I’ve heard so far, it sounds like it could be a welcome return to previous form. Both the new album and Girlfriend are available in a number of different formats and I’ll reveal more when I revisit Girlfriend on October 22nd. Hope you have a sweet birthday, Matthew

Big Sky (Kinks cover) – Matthew Sweet

Let Me Be the One (Carpenters cover) – Matthew Sweet

Scooby Doo, Where Are You? – Matthew Sweet

Who Knows Where the Time Goes? (Sandy Denny cover) – Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs

Sick of Myself (Matthew Sweet cover) – Death Cab for Cutie

Luck of the Irish

It was with some joy that I opened the above text message on my phone yesterday. As you can see, I’ve won the not inconsiderable sum of 300,000 Great British Pounds in a rather wonderful competition called the Ongoing UK COCA-COLA 2011 PROMO. Not bad, eh? It sounds even better when you convert it into other currencies. For example, it’s worth a third of a million euro and nearly half a million dollars. The funny thing is I don’t remember entering the competition and I’ve yet to visit the UK this year. I don’t even drink Coca Cola! I haven’t phoned or emailed them yet in case they tell me that it’s all a mistake. I suppose I should’ve been spending my day wondering how I’d spend this sudden windfall, but instead I put together a playlist. The first three songs are about people dreaming of winning the lottery and wondering how they’d spend the money. It’s holidays and vacations for Harry, a new car for Bruce and a jet plane for Patti. The Format, Ani DiFranco and, in particular, The Walkabouts offer their own interpretations of these songs. The final three tracks deal with luck as Junior Tucker and the Easy Star All-Stars delve into reggae, while Frenchman Noël Akchoté delivers an instrumental version of Kylie’s debut hit. Its title and words should leave nothing else to be said about my apparent good fortune

The Lottery Song (Harry Nilsson cover) – The Format

Used Cars (Bruce Springsteen cover) – Ani DiFranco

Free Money (Patti Smith cover) – The Walkabouts

Some Guys Have All the Luck (The Persuaders cover) – Junior Tucker

Lucky (Radiohead cover) – Easy Star All-Stars

I Should Be So Lucky (Kylie Minogue cover) – Noël Akchoté

Top Beards

I was watching the BBC’s coverage of this year’s Glastonbury festival when Mark Everett and his band showed up. All the members of Eels seem to have fine beards, but Everett’s is most impressive indeed. It’s even longer than in the picture above and it shouldn’t be too long before they give ZZ Top a run for their money in the facial hair stakes. Here’s Eels doing a live instrumental version of La Grange followed by the clean-shaven Union Avenue‘s Johnny Cash-inspired take on Mexican Blackbird. Sporting a full set of whiskers, The Long Winters slightly rename Gimme All Your Lovin’ in their chilled-out interpretation. Finally, ZZ Top themselves sing a Sam & Dave number that opened their 1979 album Degüello and appeared as a single the following year. The lengthy beards of Dusty Hill and Billy Gibbons more than make up for their drummer’s smooth chin. His name is, of course, Frank Beard

La Grange (ZZ top cover) – Eels

Mexican Blackbird (ZZ Top cover) – Union Avenue

Give Me All Your Lovin’ (ZZ Top cover) – The Long Winters

I Thank You (Sam & Dave cover) – ZZ Top

Apocalypse Not Quite Yet

Every year some nutter announces that the end is nigh and that the world is about to end. This time it was the turn of a US Christian radio presenter named Harold Camping. He’d been telling everyone who would listen that this thing called the Rapture was going to happen on May 21st, 2011. The Rapture is something theological that says that God’s chosen people will be taken up to Heaven and they’ll do so without footwear as their shoes will be left behind. Perhaps slippers and sandals will be big in the afterlife. According to Camping, 200 million people were supposed to have been raptured yesterday. May 21st came and went and it looks like Harold got it wrong. Of course, this is not too surprising as Camping has form in the prediction stakes. He made the same prediction back in 1994 and, rather rudely, failed to explain why he got it wrong. Camping has pencilled in the end of the world for October 21, 2011, which is five months after the Rapture. I’m confident that the world will keep on going after that date, but here are a few tunes for Harold to while away his remaining days

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Covering the 2009 Mercury Prize

Mercury Prize Logo

The 18th Mercury Music Prize will be announced tomorrow night on BBC 2 TV at 10.00pm. Primal Scream won the inaugral competition in 1992 and subsequent winners have included the likes of Suede, Pulp, Badly Drawn Boy and the Arctic Monkeys. Only four of the seventeen winning acts have been fronted by female singers: M People (1994); Portishead (1995); PJ Harvey (2001); and Ms Dynamite (2002). Each prize is open to albums from British and Irish acts released from June of the previous year to June of the year in question. There have been seven previous Irish nominees: U2 (1992); Therapy? (1994); Van Morrison (1995); Gemma Hayes (2002); The Thrills (2003); Snow Patrol (2004); and Fionn Regan (2007). Lisa Hannigan is the only Irish nominee this year and is one of five female singers on this year’s list along with Bat For Lashes, Florence & the Machine, La Roux and Speech Debelle. This year’s list is dominated by debut albums and only Bat For Lashes has been at this stage before for Fur and Gold in 2007. She is one of the favourites this year along with Lisa Hannigan and Florence & the Machine. Florence’s album has some great songs on it, but there’s also a bit of filler on it. I really like Glasvegas’ album and I think it has a great chance. However, I’d love to see Lisa Hannigan win for her album, Sea Sew. It’s a real grower and has taken me a while to get into it. But, it’s a very cohesive album and is one of my favourites of the last few years. You can check out tunes from eight of this year’s nominees below. La Roux features in a mashup with Hard-Fi, who appeared on 2005′s list. The rest of them sing other people’s songs including Bat For Lashes being joined by Fionn Regan on a song from Screamadelica, the first winner of the prize

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