The Polyphonic Spree are a strange choice of a band to do a mostly faithful cover of a classic song. I mean, of all the bands, why a full chorus featuring a French horn, a pretty complete strings section, and a lot of other instruments found in more orchestras than rock bands.
Except they aren't a strange pick. You see, the vocalist of Tthe Polyphonic Spree used to front a band called Tripping Daisy..... this band was a reaction to THAT band's guitarist suddenly dying. It is there that you can hear the Nirvana influence (although they seem a bit more Green Day-y to me).
What The Polyphonic Spree bring are the excitement and exuberance - they retain the spirit of the party song this truly is.
Plus their harp player looks an awful lot like Dave Grohl.
Admit it, you didn't see the phrase "nature is a whore" showing up in a country song, did you?
And yet, Sturgill Simpson takes a very loud song and makes it into a sweet coming of age tune - which is exactly what the original was for him when he was 13, when, as he puts it in an interview with Rolling Stone:
I remember in seventh or eighth grade, when [Nevermind] dropped, it was like a bomb went off in my bedroom. For me, that song has always summed up what it means to be a teenager, and I think it tells a young boy that he can be sensitive and compassionate — he doesn’t have to be tough or cold to be a man.”
He does a masterful job with his remake, because he took the time to understand Kurt Cobain's lyrics, and because it touched him deeply. This is, to date, his only song to chart on the Billboard Country Chart, peaking at #48 in 2016.
I don't usually open with the live performance and put a music video later, but I wanted you to SEE the emotion Simpson poured into the song before you saw the images he chose to represent the song.
Any alternative band of the mid-90's is going to have been influenced in some way by Nirvana. No doubt, No Doubt knew that. Hence, this fine live cover. It's a gem that shows the days before No Doubt became a bit more poppy and Gwen Stefani was not afraid to just belt a song.
Today, the original Miley Cyrus version of this song reentered the charts. The song is objectively great, and the lyrics were brilliantly written by Jessica Ellen Cornish.
Question: Isn't Jessie short for Jessica?
Answer: Why, yes, it is. In fact, THIS is the writer performing the song she wrote, live.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of 2020 is the Post Malone Nirvana tribute livestream. It's not the type of music you'd expect out of him, and yet, he does a faithful and brilliant cover many songs from the entire Nirvana catalog, from Bleach ("About A Girl" was absolutely the Bleach version although more people know it from Unplugged so that's probably why it was included; there can be no question about "School") all the way to In Utero.
I could not pick just one song, so I decided to share the entire livestream. The livestream was performed as a benefit for the United Nations Foundation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for The World Health Organization (WHO) in support of COVID-19 relief efforts, and it is all gold.
Each of these covers today have two things in common:
1) They were all recorded on the same day in April 2014. 2) They all featured Krist Novocelic, Dave Grohl, and Pat Smear
These performances were from the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction of Nirvana, and they decided to do it live with a bunch of different lead vocalists. While each are faithful covers - I mean, the backing band - none of these vocalists attempt a Kurt Cobain impersonation, and that's a good thing.
The first one, "Lithium", from the Nevermind album, features a woman named Annie Clark who Krist Novocelic erroneously introduces as the vocalist from the BAND St. Vincent - Annie Clark IS St. Vincent - but that's not important. What's important is that she was probably the least well-known vocalist of the lot, and this was something of a star-making performance.
Kim Gordon, on the other hand, was well-known in indie circles as a founder and member of Sonic Youth for many years. That band broke up in 2011, but Kim Gordon didn't forget her old friends. You see, Nirvana toured as an opening act with Sonic Youth in 1991, before Nevermind dropped and changed the world. Gordon chose to sing the hell out of a deep cut, "Aneurysm", a B-side to......
........"Smells Like Teen Spirit". On this night, Joan Jett - who Krist Novocelic states was NOT yet in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (but was inducted in 2015 with the Blackhearts, a year later) (The Runaways should be in the R&RHOF) - sang what is probably their best known song, and sang the hell out of it.
This brings us to the end and Lorde. Lorde covered "All Apologies" from the In Utero album. It is probably the least faithful of the four covers - because, you know, accordion - and Lorde is the only one of these four singers to never walk the Earth as the same time as Kurt Cobain. She still, like everyone else this evening, killed it.
