Hello World

Okay, another cover today. Yesterday I gave you an Elliott Smith cover of a Ray Davies song. We stick with Elliott Smith today, with a cover that really doesn’t differ much from the original–Big Star‘s “Thirteen” (mp3 link). The only difference that justifies the existence of the cover is the emotional intensity that Elliott Smith brings in his cover (mp3 link). It’s kind of hard to explain why, but it seems like Big Star’s original is retrospective–a man looking back on his transition from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, Elliott Smith’s feels much more like time travel–a peek into the mind of the boy as he makes that transition.

Stream a low-fi version of Smith’s cover below:

Tomorrow: we round out our cover set with the rare double cover. Stay tuned!

It’s hard to believe we’ve made it this far without a Ray Davies song! So let’s deal with that immediately. Today we have a song off of This Is Where I Belong, a collection of Ray Davies (and Kinks) covers. This recording is performed by Fountains of Wayne, a band which I recommend whole-heartedly. To be honest with you, I had never heard the original (and as of this writing I still haven’t!), but this is a great performance that leverages Davies’s songwriting and Fountains of Wayne’s adept musicianship. And I think you should listen to it now: Better Things – Fountains of Wayne.

Spoiler alert: stay tuned for more Ray Davies productions later in the week!

As long as the snow emergency continues I will continue to use it as an excuse for these posts being pathetically short. Anyway, another cover today, guys! I’ve made fun of certain folks for doing cheesy acoustic covers of classic hip hop (see the third installment in this series), but what I didn’t make clear is that if your acoustic cover of a classic hip hop song is really good, it’s totally not cheesy. If you’re anything like me (unlikely), you first got your hands on today’s recording via Napster, when it was attributed to the great jam band/drug haze soundtrack artists, Phish. But as we all learned eventually, it was actually an “american alternative country” band from Austin (what is it with Austin bands and great cover songs?) called The Gourds, and as you have probably figured out by now the song was a cover of Snoop Dogg’s seminal work, “Gin and Juice“.

So what’s great about this? Well, the initial appeal is the contrast between the kinda old-fashionedy sound of the music and the profanity of the subject matter. But after a few hundred listenings you start to realize that the arrangement is actually really good, and so is the performance. And, I swear, after you get halfway to a thousand plays, you start to think of this cover as the quintessential version of the song. And then you track down the Gourds’ performance on Austin City Limits and you realize these guys rule so much that it kinda sucks that most people will never think of them as anyone but the guys who had that cover of “Gin and Juice” 10 years ago. Okay, you get the idea. Enjoy the song.

Live version embedded below, studio recording here: Gin and Juice – The Gourds.

All right, let’s listen to another cover. Today’s song comes from, of all things, the soundtrack to a video game. For some reason, the makers of Stubbs the Zombie decided to get a bunch of awesome bands to cover classic songs from the ’50s and ’60s (the game takes place in 1959). The bands I have heard of that, amazingly, contributed to the soundtrack: Ben Kweller, The Raveonettes, Death Cab for Cutie, Cake, The Walkmen, The Dandy Warhols, The Flaming Lips, Phantom Planet, and the band behind today’s song, Clem Snide. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d ever even heard the original version, by Little Anthony & the Imperials, when I first came across the Clem Snide version, but it resonated nonetheless. The great thing about the Clem Snide version is how it differs in phrasing and melody enough to distinguish it from the original (and to make it an improvement, I think), yet how it preserves the feeling of being an oldie. It’s a really interesting arrangement that takes advantage of Clem Snide’s strengths while still making great use of a simple, catchy tune. It’s lively but melancholy–a combination that almost always works for me. Enjoy.

Tears On My Pillow – Clem Snide