Cover My Back

Back in the day, the words ‘cover version’, originally described a rival version of a tune recorded to compete with the recently released original version. But as the years have gone on, no longer was the purpose of the cover to compete, but merely to accompany its existence in our brains. Very rarely does an artist dare take on the mighty force of a massive hit in the hope of usurping its memory in our brains – of course only Jimi Hendrix could OWN Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along The Watchtower’ and Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’ is most definitely a triumphant usurper of Leonard Cohen’s songcraft. Normally covers are just here as a bit of a tribute, digging up the old to showcase it to new ears.

The Slits‘ excellent interpretation of ‘I Heard it Through The Grapevine’ is a brilliantly jagged alternative to Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & The Pips’ soulful sounds, providing an unusual punk take on the original soulful composition. There’s a point to it! However, up and coming Ellie Goulding’s cover of Passion Pit’s ‘Sleepyhead’, which I heard today, made me consider some of those versions that really are a little bit pointless and offer neither a rivalistic quality nor a tribute to the original. They just exist in the space where something they should have perhaps penned themselves could have been. I really like Ellie Goulding, I think she’s going to do really very well, but to cover a song that only came out a second ago, and do it in a similarly saccharine electro way isn’t going to steal its original limelight. It’s alright! But I reckon she should have just put one of her own songs on her sampler instead.

Recently, my favourite mini super-group/indie collaboration That Nobody Will Really Remember In Three Years Time – Discovery (him off Vampire Weekend and the other one is him off Ra Ra Riot) offered us two covers on their debut album. First there’s a cover of Jackson 5’s sweet and timeless ‘I Want You Back’, which is literally the most hideous musical discharge that has ever been omitted from a computer. And there’s a cover of Ra Ra Riot’s ‘Can You Tell’, which is just someone from Ra Ra Riot singing a Ra Ra Riot song but as if they’ve been connected vocally to a load of electric fireworks (not sure what that is). It’s just a bit daft.

As bad as they were, at least they didn’t decide to enlist the help of one of the world’s biggest rap stars, a Beatle and the weasel faced frontman of a rock rap hybrid act to try and make a cover good. I am of course talking about this footage here, which sees Jay-Z and Chester from Linkin Park doing their cross genre thang like it ain’t no thang until former legendary songwriter, and now sort of embarrassing Dad figure Paul McCartney rocks up (hand in pocket – casual) and their ‘Numb/Encore’ remix blends seamlessly into a big thang sing along to ‘Yesterday’. Thang.

By far one of the most horrendous things you will ever witness. Other than this (I know it’s a still but you can sort of imagine it)

On a final note, as indie-schmindie as this sounds, you should all listen to my current favourite cover version – Final Fantasy and Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste doing their version of Bjork’s ‘Possibly Maybe’. It’s quite beautiful. And in my opinion, a tribute to a beautiful song with some wonderful tweaks to it, just not as wonderful as the original.