Open to Interpretation – Kicking off the Covers

One of the things I love about the internet is the amount of music that is available – legally. I really enjoy listening to new music, sifting through the garbage (there’s a lot of it) & finding the gems. I’m always looking for covers. I am not a creative person & am fascinated by those who are. I look for covers of my favorite songs or artists, but I hate it when the cover is too faithful to the original. One of the hardest bands to cover is Led Zeppelin. Their songs are amazing, the sound is unique and most artists are not willing to do modify the song much, so it pales in comparison to the original.

A great example of a cover is ‘I will Survive’ by Cake. They keep the spirit of the original, but make significant changes – obviously male singer & adding the trumpet fills. I read an interview with John McRea (the lead singer) & they asked him if their cover was supposed to be ‘ironic’. He said no, that they covered the song because it was a great song. You can’t have a good cover without a good song.

It’s really cool to find fun covers too, when it’s obvious the band is having a great time playing the song. A perfect example is a cover of ‘Genie in a Bottle’ by Something for Kate. I don’t know much about this Australian band, but their cover is excellent – MP3.

A Perfect Circle released Emotive in 2004. There are some fantastic covers on this album including a great Led Zeppelin cover (When the Levee Breaks), one from Depeche Mode (People are People) & a cover of Let’s Start a War by Fear. The songs were significantly reworked for the album. I highly recommend the whole album.

The last song of this post is Lily Allen‘s cover of Naive by the Kooks – MP3. The original is a great Brit-pop song & Lily reworks the song as an acoustic, ska song. Another example of a really cool cover. Keep looking for great covers & when I find more, I’ll post them here.

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