Your Cover's Blown!

Most great artists write great songs. The majority also play great songs. Quite frequently, the one leads to the other, but not today. Today I am going to drop some covers on you...

From the A Bunch of Stuff EP a couple of years back, Franz Ferdinand cover one of 2007's best songs. It sounds very different with guitar (as opposed to some Springsteen-esque pounding piano) and cuts down on the long intro, but it's still a fun take on a true original.

Franz Ferdinand - All My Friends (LCD Soundsystem Cover)

LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends

I am not really a Peter Gabriel guy, but I am always entertained when someone is desperate to be relevant again. The former Genesis frontman recently released Scratch My Back, an album of covers spanning everyone from Radiohead to The Arcade Fire. He sounded confident those artists would return the favor, but so far only Bon Iver has stepped up. In an exclusive single for Record Store Day 2010, Justin Vernon takes the original's early-90s soft rock exoticism (the drums sound like they belong in an IMAX documentary about the Serengeti... or at least in "Africa" by Toto) and replaces it with strummed banjo. Sweet.

Bon Iver - Come Talk To Me (Peter Gabriel Cover)
Peter Gabriel - Come Talk To Me

Best known as Beyonce's younger sister, Solange Knowles deserves your notice if you are a fan of indie music. While she was recently dropped from Interscope and is still pondering her next move in a career she hopes to model after Bjork's (who doesn't), she is important because she can break down barriers. Last summer, when Grizzly Bear played the Jelly NYC Pool Parties, she showed up with Jay-Z and Beyonce in tow, and they were singing along. Now THAT's influence. In the meantime, check her cover of The Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is The Move", a track that already owed a great debt to 90s R&B.

Solange Knowles - Stillness Is The Move (Dirty Projectors Cover)
The Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

Fucking brilliant. A.C. Newman is absolutely my favorite purveyor of pop goodness, my dealer in all drugs sweet and sugary. His New Pornographers tracks turn to gold and his solo work is inspired. This cover? A confection cooked up in heaven, judging by how sweet the strings are (who needs synths). If only someone would figure out a way to sync it up with the original, iconic music video.

A.C. Newman - Take On Me (a-ha Cover)
A-Ha - Take On Me

From 2009's War Child Presents Heroes, a Red Hot Charity Compilation, which produced several of my favorite covers of last year (here), Karen O has a blast being every bit as punk rock as Sheena.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (Ramones Cover)
The Ramones - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

And as a bonus, my three favorite hip-hop v. indie rock mashups recently, from expert matchmakers The Hood Internet (featured in my post on Mash-Up).

The Hood Internet - Save Me Concubine (Beirut v. Ghostface Killah)
The Hood Internet - The XX Gon' Give It To Ya (DMX v. the xx)
The Hood Internet - Sun Chewed Up (Caribou v. Slug and Murs)