Hey, all you cover-song-lovin’ sumbitches, let’s take a test:
Look at the following track listing for this upcoming tribute to forty years of the BBC’s Radio 1 – the station begun in 1967, so they’ve gotten current artists to go back and cover one song from each year that they’ve been on the air – and see how far into it you can get before clicking on the big red button on the album cover and ordering it from Amazon.co.uk.
1967 – ‘Flowers In The Rain’ (The Move) covered by Kaiser Chiefs
1968 – ‘All Along The Watchtower’ (Jimi Hendrix Experience) covered by The Fratellis
1969 – ‘Cupid’ (Johnny Nash) covered by Amy Winehouse
1970 – ‘Lola’ (The Kinks) covered by Robbie Williams
1971 – ‘Your Song’ (Elton John) covered by The Streets
1972 – ‘Betcha By Golly Wow’ (The Stylistics) covered by Sugababes
1973 – ‘You’re So Vain’ (Carly Simon) covered by The Feeling
1974 – ‘Band On The Run’ (Wings) covered by Foo Fighters
1975 – ‘Love Is The Drug’ (Roxy Music) covered by Kylie
1976 – ‘Let’s Stick Together’ (Bryan Ferry) covered by KT Tunstall
1977 – ‘Sound & Vision’ (David Bowie) covered by Franz Ferdinand
1978 – ‘Teenage Kicks’ (The Undertones) covered by The Raconteurs
1979 – ‘Can’t Stand Losing You’ (The Police) covered by Mika
1980 – ‘Too Much Too Young’ (The Specials) covered by Kasabian
1981 – ‘Under Pressure’ (Queen & David Bowie) covered by Keane
1982 – ‘Town Called Malice’ (The Jam) covered by McFly
1983 – ‘Come Back And Stay’ (Paul Young) covered by James Morrison
1984 – ‘Careless Whisper’ (George Michael) covered by The Gossip
1985 – ‘The Power Of Love’ (Huey Lewis & The News) covered by The Pigeon Detectives
1986 – ‘Don’t Get Me Wrong’ (The Pretenders) covered by Lily Allen
1987 – ‘You Sexy Thing’ (Hot Chocolate) covered by Stereophonics
1988 – ‘Fast Car’ (Tracy Chapman) covered by Mutya Buena
1989 – ‘Lullaby’ (The Cure) covered by Editors
1990 – ‘Englishman In New York’ (Sting) covered by Razorlight
1991 – ‘Crazy For You’ (Madonna) covered by Groove Armada
1992 – ‘It Must Be Love’ (Madness) covered by Paolo Nutini
1993 – ‘All That She Wants’ (Ace Of Base) covered by The Kooks
1994 – ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’ (Mary J Blige) covered by Mark Ronson
1995 – ‘Stillness In Time’ (Jamiroquai) covered by Calvin Harris
1996 – ‘No Diggity’ (Blackstreet) covered by Klaxons
1997 – ‘Lovefool’ (The Cardigans) covered by Just Jack
1998 – ‘Ray Of Light’ (Madonna) covered by Natasha Bedingfield
1999 – ‘Drinking in LA’ (Bran Van 3000) covered by The Twang
2000 – ‘The Great Beyond’ (REM) covered by The Fray
2001 – ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ (Wheatus) covered by Girls Aloud
2002 – ‘Like I Love You’ (Justin Timberlake) covered by Maximo Park
2003 – ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’ (The Libertines) covered by The View
2004 – ‘Toxic’ (Britney Spears) covered by Hard-Fi
2005 – ‘Father & Son’ (Yusuf Islam & Ronan Keating) covered by The Enemy
2006 – ‘Steady, As She Goes’ (The Raconteurs) covered by Corinne Bailey Rae
(For the record, I think 1975 was finally the breaking point for me. When you can actually hear the cover in your head at the moment you read the pairing of artist and song, it’s time to suck it up and break out the credit card. And I guarantee that even if Medsker thinks he can hold out, there’s always 2004 to make him go, “Oh, goddammit, now I *HAVE* to get it!”




eh, I’d rather have a CD w/ all the originals instead.
They had me at the Feeling covering Carly Simon. Holy schnikes, this looks amazing. Well, except for the fact that “Teenage Dirtbag” is on it. No one needs to ever speak of Wheatus again.
Those are never as good as they sound. Case in point: Elecktra’s “Rubiyat” thing, Even the Pixies doing “Born in Chicago” and The Cure doing “Hello I Love You” were lame. (The cure was just coming off the distorted-guitar majesty of “Never Enough,” if only they’d kept that style going a little longer, for that cover, and their next couple albums, but alas, that was their last decent single.
God, I have so many tribute albums and compilations like that and there’s never more than a couple decent songs, most of them are loaded up with Tanita Tikaram and The Beautiful South and Third Eye Blind who sounded impressive at the time but were coming to the end of their fifteen minutes of undeserved fame.
Funny, as soon as I saw “You’re So Vain” on that, my mind immediately jumped to Faster Pussycat’s cover of it on the Rubaiyat collection! That thing was indeed a shambles, save for about three tracks (Leaders of The New School’s, Danny Gatton’s, and The Sugarcubes’ to be exact). Here’s hoping this one’s a bit better.
But yeah, “tribute” albums and the like are usually a good setup for some degree of disappointment.
always sound better on paper than in reality…