For this playlist it's time to delve back into the cupboard of cover versions.
We all know there are plenty of terrible and mediocre cover versions out there, but here we celebrate ten more of the good ones.
So, put your distrust of those not so good ones to the side and strap in for some great re-workings of some already great songs.
1.Kathryn Williams: Movin' On Up
Kathryn Williams is a folk singer from Liverpool who has released 14 albums since her debut in 1999. Movin' On Up was originally the lead track on Primal Scream's Dixie-Narco EP, taken from their smash hit Screamadelica record in 1992. Williams' stripped back and delicate version. lends a more country-like hue to tune.
Movin' On Up - here
(Live at the Quay Sessions, 2015)
2. Kasabian: Pictures Of Matchstick Men
Leicester indie band Kasabian were formed back in 1997. This authentically psychedelic cover version featured as the B-Side of their 2006 single Shoot The Runner, from second album Empire. Pictures had been the first hit for Status Quo way back in 1968, reaching number 7 in the UK and number12 in the US. Apparently, the song was mostly written by guitarist / vocalist Francis Rossi whilst sitting on the toilet, as he tried to keep out of the way of his wife and mother-in-law. The matchstick men referenced, relate to the famous industrial paintings of LS Lowry.
Pictures Of Matchstick Men - here
(Audio only)
3. Tori Amos: Rattlesnakes
Myra Ellen Amos, aka Tori Amos, is a classically trained musician (who studied at the prestigious Peabody Institute from the ages of 5 to 11), writing her first instrumental pieces aged five. Strange Little Girls was a concept album of 12 songs that had originally been written and performed by men, which Amos turned around to come from a female perspective. Songs on the record included Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode), I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats), Raining Blood (Slayer) and Heart Of Gold (Neil Young). The original version was based around a riff by Commotions guitarist Neil Clark that he said came to him in his sleep. By the next day Lloyd Cole had written a counter-melody and the lyrics, inspired by American writer Joan Didion.
Rattlesnakes - here
(Live on Leno, 2001 - somewhat impressively playing two pianos at once)
4. Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Born To Run
It's fair to say in a field of unusual covers, this one is perhaps one of the strangest. Amongst the hype, controversy and swagger of debut album, Welcome To The Pleasuredome, sits this unexpected gem of a cover version. This was an album that sold 250,000 in week one and naturally hit number one. Of course, the original is the title track of Bruce Springsteen's third album in 1975 and was his first single to be released worldwide, although it struggled to get much airplay outside of the US, where it reached number 23. It is a love letter written in the first person, conveying his need to get out of his home town of Freehold, NJ and "out on Highway 9".
Born To Run - here
(Live on The Tube - proving the rumours that they couldn't play were wrong)
5. Placebo: Daddy Cool
Brian Molko (born in Brussels) and Stefan Olsdal (born in Sweden) met at the American International School in Luxembourg - and then met again by chance in London, in 1994. They formed Ashtray Heart, which then became Placebo. The Covers album was originally a bonus disc added to the Sleeping With Ghosts special edition LP, before it was later released in its own right. The record includes their versions of classics like 20th Century Boy (T-Rex), Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Smiths), and Where Is My Mind? (Pixies). Then there is this updated electro-rock version of Daddy Cool, which had been the first big disco hit by German based band Boney M, created by producer Frank Farian (who also co-wrote this song). It came from their 1976 debut Take The Heat Off Me, with the percussive intro on the original coming from Farian tapping a pencil on his teeth.
Daddy Cool - here
(Audio only)
6. The Rezillos: Glad All Over
The Rezillos are a punk / new wave band formed in Edinburgh in 1976, who took a much more light hearted approach to their sound than many contemporaries. This reflected their love of 50s rock n roll and 70s glam. Their album, Can't Stand The Rezillos, is considered one of the first, and best, of British new wave. It includes several 60s covers including this one originally by the Dave Clark Five. It was written by Dave Clark and Mike Smith, and featured the big beat of the British wall of sound production, know as the 'Tottenham Sound'. Knocking I Want To Hold Your Hand off the number one spot in January 1964, it kick started something of a DC5 vs Beatles rivalry. Can't imagine what happened to the other lot!
Glad All Over - here
(Audio only)
7. The Beat: Tears Of A Clown
The Beat formed in Birmingham in 1978, with a mix of British and Jamaican musicians, fast becoming one of the most important of the new wave of British ska that was emerging from the West Midlands. One of those musicians was sax player Saxa (Lionel Augustus Martin, born 1930) - already something of a legend in the reggae world, he joined them for their first single - a cover Tears Of A Clown (double-A with Ranking Full Stop - it made #6). For some reason it wasn't included on original version of their debut album I Just Can't Stop It. In his younger days, Martin had played with the likes of Prince Buster and Desmond Dekker. The original was written by Smokey Robinson, Hank Cosby and Stevie Wonder - for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in 1967. Wonder and Cosby came up with the music but could not get the lyrics, so while at a party, Wonder challenged Robinson to come up with them. He thought the refrain sounded like a circus and so wrote words to match that theme. He uses the opera Pagliacci by Rugger Leoncavallo as a comparison for the man whose girl has left him.
Tears Of A Clown - here
(Top Of The Pops, 1979)
8. Gun: Rock The Casbah
Here we are with Scots rockers Gun, for their second appearance in a Covers playlist - they must be doing something right. This was included on their 2019 Best Of album, R3Loaded. The original was, of course, by The Clash, and released in1982, becoming their only Top10 US hit (#8). It comes from fifth album Combat Rock, and unlike the more usual Strummer-Jones penned music, this one was written by drummer Topper Headon, who had pretty much nailed all of the instrument parts before anyone else ever heard it. However, Strummer didn't like Headon's soppy lyrics and proceeded to screw them up - he already had some of the phrases in need of a song, and he finished them off to go with the song.
Rock The Casbah - here
(Official music video)
9. R.E.M.: Toys In The Attic
This Aerosmith tune was a Steven Tyler / Joe Perry song from the 1975 album of the same name. It was the B-Side of the single You See Me Crying. The REM version was released as the B-Side on some versions of Fall On Me, from 1986s Life's Rich Pageant. It also shows up on Dead Letter Office. their excellent LP of B-Sides and rarities. Peter Buck said it was "always fun to play live."
Toys In The Attic - here
(Live on Rockpalast, 1985)
10. Nirvana: The Man Who Sold The World
Another candidate for the greatest cover version of all time (that's not a question, by the way).
This was the title track of David Bowie's third album, which passed largely unnoticed in 1970. It is based on a Mick Ronson riff along with cryptic lyrics based on a variety of old poems. The first real notice given the song was when Lulu had a Top5 hit with it in 1974 (produced by Bowie and Ronson). Kurt Cobain, in his journals, has the album at number 45 of his top 50. It became part of the Nirvana set for MTV Unplugged in October 1993 - and ended up being a promotional single in 1995 when the album version came out. Brian Kay writing in Classic Rock said of it, that "Cobain's haunting vocals overtook and descended the Bowie lyric into an arena of darkness and hallucination that seemed to be Bowie's original intent. "
The Man Who Sold The World - here
(Live on MTV Unplugged, 1993)
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