PLAYLIST 08/01/22: COVERS
Hi. It's been a while!
In case you're wondering what this is--I migrated my newsletter from Tinyletter to Buttondown for various reasons. Hopefully you remember subscribing in the first place?
There were a couple rules for this playlist:
- The songs had to be covers;
- The cover could not itself be the most iconic version of the song (i.e. not Janis Joplin's Me and Bobby McGee);
- I had to have heard the original track before I heard the cover (i.e. not Lana's Chelsea Hotel No 2, which I heard without even knowing it was a Leonard Cohen song, or likewise with the Raveonettes' I Wanna Be Adored ...or King Woman's version, either, though I at least knew it was a Stone Roses cover by then...);
- The cover couldn't be my introduction to the covering artist's work (i.e. not Big Joanie's Cranes in the Sky or Mr. Little Jeans' The Suburbs);
- I had to actually like both versions of the song (i.e. no ironic covers or making an originally "bad" song good).
I often have the hardest time enjoying this type of cover. Trying to balance my pre-existing expectations of the covering artist's style with my existing appreciation of the original track can be a barrier to my appreciation. But sometimes it's really great! Hopefully you'll agree...
1. Passionfruit – Yaeji covering Drake
- Definitional version. To me. And not even because I don't like the original, because I do.
2. Slow Hands – Azealia Banks covering Interpol
3. Runaway – Shannon & the Clams covering Del Shannon
- Transposing the iconic organ solo to the guitar should not have worked this well.
4. Harvest Moon – Widowspeak covering Neil Young
- I’ll be real, the Neil Young version is unimpeachable but this cover is still very nice in the way that listening to your friends play a song on acoustic guitar is nice in a completely separate way from having it having to be "as good as" the original.
5. Wax and Wane – Deftones covering Cocteau Twins
6. Too Little Too Late – Department of Eagles covering JoJo
7. How to Rent a Room – Stef Chura covering Silver Jews
8. Head Over Heels – Japanese Breakfast covering Tears For Fears
9. More Than This – Angel Olsen covering Roxy Music
10. Good Morning, Captain – The Besnard Lakes covering Slint
- A different track later on this playlist was the reason I put this playlist together, but this track was the reason I actually bothered to finish it. TBL closed their set I saw this week on this and I was delighted.
11. Wandering Star – TORRES covering Portishead
12. You Don't Own Me / Canopy – serpentwithfeet covering Lesley Gore
13. Seabird – Marissa Nadler covering Alessi Brothers
- So, I'm actually a lot more familiar with the Innovations version of this track than with the original, but I HAD heard it before, so I'm counting it.
- This is actually only my second favourite Marissa Nadler cover, my #1 being her version of In the Air Tonight, which is one of my favourite covers of all times, but I already put that on my tbh very good He Xuan mix, so I decided to branch out. And this is a great breezy summer track, more in season than her heavier stuff.
14. Godstar – Anika covering Psychic TV
15. Burning Down the House – Tom Jones & The Cardigans covering Talking Heads
- Tom Jones the original quirked up white boy goated with the sauce? Or maybe that's just David Byrne?!?!??!!?
16. Heart-Shaped Box – Amber Mark covering Nirvana
17. A Good Man Is Hard To Find – DM Stith covering Sufjan Stevens
18. Silver Springs – Lykke Li covering Fleetwood Mac
- Two things make this work: first, that guitar, and second, the fact that Lykke Li isn’t trying to do a Stevie Nicks impression.
19. Petals – Chromatics covering Hole
20. Enter Sandman – Rina Sawayama covering Metallica
- I originally had Rina's cover of Dance In the Dark on this playlist because I genuinely forgot that her version of Enter Sandman was a cover. It has eclipsed the original in my mind.
21. Come as You Are – Princess Chelsea covering Nirvana
22. Everytime – Ethel Cain covering Britney Spears
23. Mind Your Own Business – Automatic covering Delta 5
24. Handsome Devil – Parenthetical Girls covering The Smiths
25. Papi Pacify – Anna Calvi covering FKA twigs
26. Poison Tree – Black Marble covering Grouper
27. More Than A Woman – Kelly Lee Owens covering Aaliyah
28. Cel U Lar Device – Erykah Badu covering Drake
- 2016 sounds like this (both this version + Hotline Bling proper), Frank Ocean's Blonde, and Rihanna's ANTI. To me!!!!!!
29. Good Times – Lydia Ainsworth covering Chic
30. Revival – Aldous Harding covering Deerhunter
- This could be mistaken at first pass for twee, but there’s an underlying strangeness and borderline menace which are characteristic of Aldous Harding’s work in general and I love it.
31. Desperado – The Kills covering Rihanna
32. Some Velvet Morning – Slowdive covering Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
33. I Can Change – Ezra Furman covering LCD Soundsystem
34. Oblivion – Dry Cleaning covering Grimes
- The aforementioned song that made me make this playlist to begin with. I could have easily subbed in Marika Hackman's Realiti, but I didn't want to let Grimes reach the level of Nirvana and Drake re: getting double represention on this list.
35. Sharp Dressed Man – Xiu Xiu covering ZZ Top
- The best Xiu Xiu songs are when it sort of sounds like they’re doing a bit but also not really.
+ YOUTUBE-ONLY BONUS TRACK:
36. Stillness Is the Move – Solange covering Dirty Projectors
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