28 August 2020 - Throwing Muses - Cry Baby Cry

Yesterday, I featured a Beatles cover by The Breeders, and I was quite clear about my two favorite bands, and how that was a dream supergroup for me.

Let me be abundantly clear.  Throwing Muses was (and is) my favorite band.  This has not changed.  Kristin Hersh has one of the most unique voices in music, and while the band is better with Tanya Donelly on guitar and 2nd vocal, they're still pretty great.  This band got me through a lot of hard times.  I take the unpopular-among-Muses-fans opinion that their 1988 album House Tornado is not only their best album, but the best album ever produced - and it is not an easy listen.  

The last single the band released before Tanya left to form Belly was the song "Not Too Soon", which featured Tanya on vocal.   This song was its B-side - a Beatles cover that had the same title as a Muses song (on their Chains Changed EP)  - and it is absolutely beautiful.  Kristin takes the clear lead vocal here, but both voices shine through - and it makes the song arguably richer than the original.  

27 August 2020 - The Breeders - Happiness Is A Warm Gun

The Breeders originally started out as a side project from The Pixies (Kim Deal) and Throwing Muses (Tanya Donelly).  At the time, if you were to ask me what my two favorite bands were, I would quite quickly say "Throwing Muses and The Pixies".  This was my own personal supergroup!

Their first album, Pod (also featuring Josephine Wiggs from Perfect Disaster) was a lo-fi masterpiece.  Donelly left the band after Pod and the follow-up EP Safari, when she went to front Belly and the Breeders were becoming a full-time gig.....

.....but she still comes back from time to time.  This performance from 2013, of a song from Pod, is simply a good, fun time - but also a Beatles cover.  

26 August 2020 - Pseudo Echo - Funkytown

Who would have thought that a tiny little band from Australia would have a huge hit doing a quintessential disco classic? 

Who would have thought they could make it rock?

And yet that's what happened.  Pseudo Echo made Lipps Inc. rock and rock hard.  In the 1980's, it was possible to rock hard if you had a guitar, even if you also had a keytar.  

 

Of course they did it live.  They added a keyboardist to the keytar for some extra synth - but it still rocked hard.   

25 August 2020 - Little Mix - Telephone

We have featured Little Mix before on this blog.  We open with that, because they are that good.

To refresh your memory, this quartet got their start on the British television show X Factor, winning the show's 8th series in 2011.  Today's Wicked Guilty Pleasure was covered on episode 6 by this group of four talented young women, interpolating a little Queen with their Gaga.   

Tomorrow, I promise I'll feature a song that isn't on the other blog on the same day.  

10 August 2020 - Charlotte Hervieux & Doryan Ben - Into The Unknown

It feels weird to call this a cover, but it is.  Let me explain.

Clearly, Doryan Ben is a man, so he did not play Elsa in Frozen 2, so he's not an original artist, and not commissioned by Disney to perform the song.    The same CANNOT be said of Charlotte Hervieux, who sang for Elsa in both the Quebec and European French versions of the movie (and did the spoken word parts in the European version as well).  

She did not, however, originally sing it in English.  So, although we are doing this on the same day we did THIS on Wicked Guilty Pleasures - including Charlotte's French version of the song - we thought it was more appropriate to put this version here.

And it's brilliantly done.

3 Aug 2020 - Avril Lavigne - Song 2

Unlike some covers, this one is clearly a cover.

It's just weird to call it an Avril Lavigne cover. She's not singing it - she's DRUMMING.  You see, this is something she did at her shows - let her band take the lead for one song while she jammed out behind the drums.  

She's pretty good - and she's clearly enjoying herself!

And before you say - well, this is something she used to do..... she's still doing it.