10 cover songs that totally don't suck

What makes a great cover song? Usually when it comes to one, artists seem to generally record them when creativity runs out while making an album and they’re in dire need of filler. But every once in a while, an artist can take someone else’s song and turn it into something far more superior and absolute brilliance. Here’s an example of 10 tracks that trump the original composition, above and beyond.

Blinded By The Light – Manfred Mann's Earth Band  [Bruce Springsteen]
Not only is this track not generally known as a Springsteen original, it’s also been notorious for its misheard lyrics. “Revved up like a deuce”, always seems to be interpretted as “wrapped up like a douche”. A fine example of an average track turned into absolute brilliance by someone else.




Dead Souls – Nine Inch Nails  [Joy Division]
If there’s one thing Trent Reznor knows how to do flawlessly, it’s taking someone elses song and giving it a serious set of balls. He’s done it in the past with Queen and Adam Ant songs, but it’s NIN’s take on Joy Division’s Dead Souls that makes the original composition sound like it was just a demo bed track of what the end piece is supposed to sound like.




Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley  [Leonard Cohen]
Cohen’s composition is a powerful piece of music, but I would defy anyone to listen to Jeff Buckley’s version and not be completely brought to chills. Too many artists have covered this song over the years, but Jeff Buckley’s is all that’s necessary.




With a Little Help From My Friends – Joe Cocker  [The Beatles]
Many artists have covered the songbook of The Beatles over the years, but everything always ends up just sounding ho-hum. Besides, who would purposely give themselves such huge shoes to fill? Somehow, Joe Cocker defies all odds on his brilliant take on the Sgt. Pepper classic and completely and utterly outdoes the original. Blame it on Ringo.




All Along The Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix  [Bob Dylan]
"Move over Rover, and let Jimi take over". The original is good, but the guitar God entirely eclipses the song and completely cranks it into overdrive.




Sweet Jane – Cowboy Junkies  [Velvet Underground]
Not to take anything away from the artsy New Yorker's original, but the Junkies have unofficially claimed ownership of this song. It delivers such a sweet and infectious melody, and along with gorgeous vocals by singer Margo Timmins, it's impossible not to resonate to this track immediately. It was also recorded in a Toronto church with the band circled around just a single microphone to boot.




Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Guns N' Roses  [Bob Dylan]
Not to keep picking on Zimmerman here, but just another example of how another artist took a decent Dylan track and completely overshadowed it.




I Fought The Law – The Clash  [Sonny Curtis and The Crickets]
Originally recorded by Sonny Curtis in 1959, then made famous by the Bobby Fuller Four in 1965, but it wasn’t until Joe Strummer and Co. took a stab at the composition some 14 years later to gave the Law the justice it rightfully deserved.




Mad World – Gary Jules  [Tears For Fears]
Sometimes referred to as the Donny Darko song, this Tears For Fears track went from a dancey pop number to an altogether eerie and stripped down haunting drawl, giving the song the impact no one could ever imagined possible. A+ for creativity.




Mrs. Robinson – The Lemonheads  [Simon & Garfunkel]
A soft and pleasant folk number originally penned for the 1967 film, The Graduate, Evan Dando and co. came along and turned it into the hyper, make-you-wanna-jump-around-and-kick-things-over, type of ditty it became. If there's one thing The Lemonheads love to do, its cover other people's songs. Heck, they even recorded an entire covers album, Varshons, back in 2009. One of the very few acts that can do it properly.

Top 10 albums of 2010

1) The National – High Violet
2) The Black Keys – Brothers
3) Jenny and Johnny – I’m Having Fun Now
4) Band of Horses – Infinite Arms
5) Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
6) Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown
7) Neil Young – Le Noise
8) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
9) Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt
10) The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards

Notable mentions:
Robert Plant - Band of Joy
Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Glasser – Ring
Grinderman – Grinderman II
LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening
She & Him – Vol. II
Surfer Blood – Astro Coast

I'm Losing You

It’s amazing what can trigger a childhood memory. A smell, a song, a photograph – the simplest thing can take you back in time to an exact moment where you were when it originally happened. For me it’s whenever my dad’s birthday rolls around, every December, that instantly reminds me of being a five year-old boy, confused while listening to my mother trying to explain why someone would kill a man so beloved by millions.

It was approximately October 1980 and I had just been exposed to John Lennon for the first time. Lennon had been out of the spotlight for quite some time as his music career had taken a backseat to full-time fatherhood. With a brand new album to be released for the first time in 5 years that November, Beatles and John Lennon songs were in heavy rotation all over the radio. With major anticipation for Lennon's comeback, the first single, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, from the forthcoming album Double Fantasy, could be heard absolutely everywhere.
It was that precise moment in time where a love affair began as I became obsessed with The Beatles and John Lennon.

My mother had taken notice of my new found fondness and decided to break out her old Beatles records and give me a history lesson on the best band that had ever lived. There was Sgt. Peppers, Abbey Road, and Rubber Soul. But of all of them, it was Beatlemania! With The Beatles, that resonated with me the most. There was something so captivating and hypnotic, yet mysterious about the cover. It was the one with the iconic shot of the fab four's faces lit up on the right side, with the left side fading to black. This album helped me identify all four members of the band easily and to learn all of their names.

Fast forward two months later on December 5, 1980, my mother had taken me to the local mall to do some shopping for my dad’s birthday which was just 4 days later. We were strolling around a big department store and I remember turning a corner only to come face-to-face with an enormous stand-up display of the Double Fantasy album with stacks of vinyl all around it. Needless to say, my dad's birthday gift was chosen.

On the morning of December 9th, I woke up early, jumped out of bed and proudly marched down the hall towards the kitchen to give dad his birthday present. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face to see what we had got him, but as I entered the room I couldn't help but notice it wasn’t your typical joyous birthday atmosphere. I handed dad his gift and felt confused when his face didn’t light up as expected when he tore off the wrap and realized what it was inside. “Should we tell him?”, he said to my mother, shortly followed by her having a hell of a time trying to explain in the simplest terms the tragic events that had unfolded in New York City just hours prior. No matter how she tried, nothing made sense. The only thing raveling thru my 5 year-old mind was, "Why would someone want to hurt a man so beloved by millions?"
It was just too heavy for a 5 year-old to digest, and it was this that was my earliest memory of what a broken heart felt like.

Over the years, the songs on Double Fantasy have given me different meaning as I’ve endured different periods in life. Most notably “Beautiful Boy”, a track Lennon had written for his young son Sean, is what immediately popped in to mind the moment I held my new born son in my arms for the first time.

Although it’s been 30 years since the world lost this great icon, the music, the legacy, and message of peace that Lennon had heavily endorsed himself still stands strong to this day. History always finds a way to repeat itself, and with every passing generation, it’s just like starting over.

As I wise man once said, “we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun”.

Pretty Hate Machine bows down and gets the remaster it rightfully deserves

Anyone who’s familiar with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails’ body of work can most probably tell you that 1989’s debut Pretty Hate Machine entirely stands in a league of its own. Conceived during downtime working nights as the midnight janitor and handyman in a Cleveland studio, Reznor created a demo that would eventually go on to become a masterpiece and arguably the best Nine Inch Nails album to date.

This album is angry. The music is dark, the lyrics are darker, and Trent is clearly not shy of letting the world know just how completely pissed he really is. But if anyone has ever been put to the test of taking their anger and converting it into something so melodic, so captivating, and making it accessible to millions, Trent Reznor clearly trounced all odds.

Pretty Hate Machine in a sense was a cross over album that tied together the industrial music scene (Ministry, Skinny Puppy), with those who preferred dance and synth pop (New Order, Erasure) at the beginning of the 90s. Somewhat in the same form that Nirvana’s Nevermind found common ground for the hard rock, punk, and new wave groups a few years later.

As flawless as an album Pretty Hate Machine still is after 20 years from it’s original release date, many would argue it definitely sounds dated and lacks the oomph and intensity compared to its successors. If you’ve ever seen Nine Inch Nails live, you will have noticed PHM songs are completely rejuvenated and sound refurbished compared to how they were originally put to tape. It's almost as if Trent is trying to correct what he had originally set out to do.

Comparing the original recording to the remaster, the first things you’ll probably do is make an extreme volume adjustment. This album is loud. Not only has the entire arrangement been amplified, but you’ll notice a ton of goods you never knew existed; backing vocals, pronounced nuances, cleaner overall effects, etc. The differences are apparent all over the album, but tracks such as “Terrible Lie”, “Ringfinger”, and “Head Like a Hole” are runaway standouts. I also defy anyone to find another band that can cover a song and make it better than the original. NIN have done just that with their take on Queen’s “Get Down Make Love” as an added bonus track that was only ever available on the Sin single until now.

Remastering this classic was not only long overdue (mostly due to legal reasons), but very much essential. It’s not just another holiday cash grab that you so frequently see this time of year either (I’m looking in your direction, Lennon/McCartney). If you own the original, just toss it. The remaster does the album proper justice and really is the way this recording is suppose to sound. Best of all, it'll allow you to relive that excitement of hearing it as a brand new album all over again.

It only took 35 years to finally respect The Boss

Other than a few catchy radio singles such as Born to Run and maybe Hungry Heart, Bruce Springsteen was never more than just another ordinary American recording artist to me. Although loved by millions worldwide, I just couldn't relate to him on any personal level whatsoever. Maybe he just oozed a little too much blue collar Americana for my Canadian blood to fully understand and appreciate what he really stood for. Either that or it was the dreadful mid to late 80's over-production era that I was mostly exposed to making it hard to take seriously, which unfortunately plagued many classic rock bands that saw better days  a decade prior.

I always respected Springsteen as an artist, but I only really saw him as the over patriotic “Born in the USA” guy who yanked a young Courtney Cox up on stage to cut the rug in his video for Dancing in the Dark back in 1984. That or the artist who came to the emotional rescue of the American people helping to restore faith in a nation coping with the pain and suffering in the aftermath of the tragic events of 9/11 with his 2002 album, The Rising.

It wasn’t until the recent 2010 remastered boxset release of Darkness on the Edge of Town, which not only includes the original 1978 album, but consists of the two disc The Promise containing 21 unreleased outtakes from the Darkness sessions, and the documentary The Promise: The Making of the Darkness on the Edge of Town, that I finally took real notice. It is this collection that could easily make any doubter realize that not only is Springsteen not just an average ordinary American patriotic blowhard, he’s a great songwriter too. The DVD in itself outlines the entire procedure of how the album was conceived and recorded, and at times the tension between bandmates is extremely awkward and hard to watch. But it’s the vision of what the finished product became amongst a young E Street Band that is clearly documented and absolutely captivating.

The Promise, the collection of tracks Springsteen left on the cutting room floor that were deemed unworthy of making the original Darkness cut, is what’s most impressive in this set. It outlines just how prolific the then 29 year-old Springsteen was back in 1978. Track highlights include Save My Love, Because the Night, and Fire to name a few. Instead he lent the scrapped aforementioned, Because the Night, to New York singer songwriter/poet, Patti Smith to see if she could make something of it, in which he was having trouble completing. Smith’s recording of the track would go on to become the biggest and only hit of the godmother of punk’s career.
The track Fire which was also ditched, was handed over to The Pointer Sisters who recorded the song and went on to gain major notoriety with it scoring a number 2 hit back in 1979.

If you’re in the minority and late to the Springsteen party such as myself, The Darkness on the Edge of Town reissue is easily enough to make any doubter who never paid much attention to The Boss’ talent in the past to take full notice and fully appreciate this fine remastered pinnacle effort. And even those who are familiar with the original album in its entirety, this remastered collection and all the additional add-ons definitely make this album worth revisiting.

White Lies are back!

If the first single Bigger Than Us, from this London based trio is any indication of what the new album is going to sound like, than it doesn’t seem like White Lies are about to endure any kind of sophomore slump what so ever. Although there’s not much of a departure style-wise from their 2009 debut To Lose My Life, the production does sound a lot more robust this time. That would be because of the help of seasoned producer Alan Moulder, who has worked with such artists as Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails in the past, and is behind the control board this go-around. In other words, Moulder is no slouch when it comes to helping bands capture a massive sound. And it can definitely be heard in Bigger Than Us as the chorus itself packs a huge wallop that will remain lodged in your head after just a single listen, guaranteed.

Big things are still to come for this young band whose sound has often been compared to Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen to name a few. Doom and gloom may be the main overtone to White Lies' sound, but there’s also something very uplifting and euphoric about it too.

They may be dark, but their future definitely looks bright.
Ritual is out January 17.

The Beatles and Apple finally Come Together

The Beatles back catalogue has finally hit iTunes, and not only has it been a long time coming, the timing is very Beatle-esque.

What’s a Christmas season without some sort of Beatles release? Every year at this time, something in the vault gets dusted off. Whether it's a re-release, remasters, a video game, etc. What’s mind blowing is the very people who first bought Beatles records on vinyl in their youth, upgraded to CD years later, and will now dole out again for the modern day digital era. How's that for repeat business? Thank you, come again!

Other than maybe the Rolling Stones coming a close second, or arguably U2, there’s no other band in the world that is so beloved and can gain millions of new fans with every passing generation. Maybe John Lennon was on to something when he said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus? Regardless, that’s some serious power.

Not a bad feat for a little band that was only together for just under a decade.

Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith (The Cure) covering Toronto's own Platinum Blonde

1983 was the year Toronto new wave act Platinum Blonde released their debut album "Standing In The Dark". Not only did the album spawn such hits as the title track, along with "It Doesn't Really Matter", and "Sad Sad Rain", it shot the group to superstar status in their homeland of Canada for the remainder of the decade.

Fast forward to 2010, experimental electronic duo Crystal Castles, another Toronto based outfit, decided to tackle the single "Not In Love" from that very same 1983 Platinum Blonde album, hooking up with none other than Robert Smith of The Cure to take care of the vocal duties for the remix version of the track.

Kudos to Crystal Castles for recruiting the goth legend. It's perfect.



While you're at it, throw on some make-up, find a headband, and scream like a 13 year-old girl for the original.