Covered

Cover bands are fun to hear live, but when it comes to sitting down and listening to a cover version of a song, I have mixed feelings. Of course, one's experience of a cover (a recording of a song that was originally performed by someone else) is crucially dependent on whether or not one has heard the original version. Back in the late 60's when I managed a record store, I remember a record company rep being a little bit disgusted that he was selling so many copies of the 12" single of "Knock On Wood," a big disco hit by Amii Stewart, because he thought it was a total bastardization of the original by R&B singer Eddie Floyd. A just-out-of-college punk like me chuckled at him, because I had never heard the original (I was deeply steeped in pop music, but at the time, aside from Beatles and Beach Boys, my knowledge didn't go much farther back than 1969), so Stewart's version was the only one I knew, and it was fine by me. When I eventually did hear Floyd's original, I liked it and understood what the rep felt, but because the disco song was my first version, and I knew it in the context of the disco boom, I still liked it. I experienced them as two different songs and liked them both.

But certainly the sales rep's reaction is common when one knows an original, especially a beloved one, then hears a cover. I'm not sure what makes a successful cover version in my eyes. I want it to be different enough from the original so that there's a reason for recording it, but not too far off so I can still get a taste of the pleasure of the original. Perhaps the best covers are done in a completely different genre from the original; in addition to the discofied "Knock On Wood," I'm thinking of the R&B versions of "Sugar Sugar" (Wilson Pickett) and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (Aretha Franklin), and more recently the gently country-twanged take on Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town" by Sugarland. My favorite Beatles covers are Candyflip's lightly hip-hop "Strawberry Fields Forever" and Oingo Boingo's rockin' "I Am the Walrus," a song one would not automatically assume would make a good cover. Then there are the covers that are basically cunning stunts (Pet Shop Boys with their medley of "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "Can't Take Eyes Off of You"), and those that feel like stunts but work remarkably well on their own (Tori Amos' "Smells Like Teen Spirit").


All this thinking comes about because of my recent purchase of two albums of covers, Under the Covers, Vols. 1 & 2, performed by Matthew Sweet (successful indie rocker from the early 90's) and Susanna Hoffs (formerly of the Bangles)--I bought them as entire albums from iTunes, but since I don't have any physical artifact, I have a hard time thinking I actually own the albums, but that's old man fodder for another blog post. The covers are largely quite faithful to the originals, but the duo manage to bring their own jangle-pop stamp to many of the songs. Half the fun here is the interesting selection of tunes; "Monday, Monday," "Warmth of the Sun," "Go All the Way," and "Hello It's Me" were all big mainstream hits and are actually, to my ears, some of the weakest songs here because Sweet and Hoffs seem to just be paying tribute to them and not adding much, though the performances are all more than respectable.

But it's in the lesser-known songs that the duo shine: Marmalade's 60's British hit "I See the Rain" (which I'd never heard before), Love's quirky "Alone Again Or" (their version doesn't seem that different but feels smoother and more fleshed-out), and a very good version of Eric Clapton's "Bell Bottom Blues," which succeeds largely because Hoffs takes the vocal lead rather than Sweet, giving it a slightly different gender spin. I like their vocal blend on the Beatles' "And Your Bird Can Sing," Sweet sounds a bit like an in-awe fanboy as he does Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes," and they even tackle the pompous Yes song "I've Seen All Good People" and make it listenable.

Some of the above tunes are bonus tracks available only through iTunes. I'm linking to two videos, one a performance of "Cinnamon Girl," and below, a live acoustic take of "Rain" not on either album. If you're familiar with Matthew Sweet, you'll be shocked to see that he seems to have turned into Charlie Daniels. Two thumbs up for both albums (the first volume, of 60's songs, has the edge for me).