I Hope Your Ears Bleed » covers

Sondre Lerche Covers Owen Pallett

Nathan — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:04:11 +0000

I’ve always been a huge fan of cover songs. I love hearing an artist take a unique approach to someone else’s song and completely make it their own. I especially love it when the cover crosses genre’s. I have been collecting covers for quite some time now and I am going to slowly start sharing them with you. Starting today you can count on getting a cover song from me every Wednesday.

To start us off I bring you a great track from Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche. This cover is the first thing I have heard from him since his fantastic soundtrack to the hilarious Dan in Real Life. The song is called “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt” and it is my favorite song from Owen Pallett’s indie-rock musical, Heartland. Like all of Pallett’s work, Heartland is quite the orchestral feat. There is quite a bit going on in the original, which is why I enjoy Lerche’s stripped down version all the more. Take a listen below.

Sondre Lerche – Lewis Takes His Shirt Off (Owen Pallett)

Remember, don’t judge a song by it’s cover.

Song of the Moment: (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six

Cody — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:28:57 +0000

A few years ago when I first got turned on to the idea of podcasting, one of the first Video Podcast that I got turned onto was one called Four Eyed Monsters. This weekend I was watching the movie that their entire video podcast was advertising. It was fantastic. I watched it once on YouTube, but watching a film on YouTube sucks away all the quality away. I was blown away.

Well I’m not here to review the film, today at least.

The DVD comes with a CD soundtrack of songs featured in the film and podcasts. One of the songs on the soundtrack is a song by a small psychedelic rock band from California called The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The song, “(David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six”, was a part of their 1996 album Take It From The Man. The song has a very strong, very thought orchestral quality that is absolutely stunning, and exactly the kind of song that belongs in the soundtrack of a movie. It makes me think of 70’s psychedelic acts that used lots of orchestral strings in their music. I got to say; this is the kind of thing that makes my ears bleed all over the place.

When I started to write up this article, I did some google searching, as any good writer should. The first thing that gets my attention is a result called “the BJM covers project”. Apparently, dedicated fans have been recording cover versions of their favorite BMJ songs, how sweet!

So today I have compiled four versions of this great song.

The original album cut by The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre – (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six

Cover version, recorded by Paper Jones, also included on the Four Eyed Monsters soundtrack.

Paper Jones – (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six

A fan recorded cover version by The Parking Lot Experiments

The Parking Lot Experiments – (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six

A fan recorded cover version by The Koolaid Electric Company

The Koolaid Electric Company – (David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six

Alright, writing this has convinced me to write more about this album. I’ll pick another song to write about this week, plus my remix on wednesday. I hope your ears have enough reasons to bleed between now and then.

Guilt By Association Round 2

Nathan — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:40:41 +0000

So I don’t know how I missed this project the first time around. This is exactly the kind of music that I love. I mean my Gnarls Barkley cover by Ray Lamontagne and that acoustic cover of Hey Ya have become two of the most played songs in my library. So in fact I am even upset that I didn’t discover this collection of covers til now. But not too upset. Because now I have lots of incredible new cover songs to love and cherish. I will let the music speak for itself. But first I want to complain a little about the title. Yeah it’s really clever and all, but I just really don’t like the idea of guilty pleasures. I mean why feel guilty about liking a song. So what if it’s not cool to like it. So what if there’s an Avril Lavigne song that you secretly love. Or that you listened to that One Republic collaboration with Timbaland over and over. Now I’m not saying that I’m about to start praising these artists and comparing them to The Beatles or any of the other greats. But I will freely admit to both of those confessions. Without guilt.

Anyway. Back to the matter at hand. Engine Room Recordings has announced the release of the second edition of the Guilt By Association cover series. The cd is set to hit stores on February 17th, but it has already been released for download on Itunes. But for those of you short on cash, you can go ahead and stream it over on the Engine Room Recordings web-site. Also here is My Brightest Diamond’s installment in the series. I know that I just wrote about here not too long ago and that I had thirteen others to choose from. But I was just so excited that she chose to record this song, because I actually saw her play this song when I saw her open for The Decemberists a couple years ago and it was seriously the highlight of the show. Shara Worden is an incredible performer, with one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard. I cannot recommend seeing her live enough. Or the Decemberists for that matter. Well to wrap things up, here is the tracklist for Guilt By Association Vol. 2. I hope your ears bleed (but not really).

1 My Brightest Diamond – Tainted Love (Gloria Jones/Soft Cell)

2 The Bloodsugars – Self-Control (Laura Branigan)

3 Robbers on High Street – Cool It Now (New Edition)

4 Frightened Rabbit – Set You Free (N-Trance)

5 Matt Pond PA – I’m Not Okay (My Chemical Romance)

6 Takka Takka – In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)

7 Kaki King – I Think She Knows (Justin Timberlake)

8 Francis and the Lights – Can’t Tell Me Nothing (Kanye West)

9 Lowry – Africa (Toto)

10 The Forms – We Didn’t Start the Fire (Billy Joel)

11 Rafter – If You Leave (OMD)

12 Cassettes Won’t Listen – Need You Tonight (INXS)

13 Jukebox the Ghost – It’s a Beautiful Life (Ace of Base)

14 Max Vernon – I Kissed a Girl (Katy Perry)

Wilco Covers Big Star

Nathan — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:10:00 +0000

I have no idea who Big Star is. But I just recently found this fantastic cover of one of their songs done by Wilco. I can’t really give an opinion on which is better since I’ve only heard the cover, but I am so enamored by the cover that I don’t really have a desire to hear the original. I can’t imagine it being any better than this. But I guess it’s only fair that I give them some credit for writing a great song. Who knows maybe I’ll be writing a whole piece on this mysterious Big Star soon. But until then, enjoy this great cover, by the great people formally known as Wilco.

Wilco – Thirteen (removed 2/13/09)

Under the COVERs

Nathan — Sun, 25 May 2008 02:28:01 +0000

so do you remember back in the summer of 2006 when you couldn’t turn the radio on without hearing gnarls barkley’s hit song crazy. so yeah i liked it, but obviously i got very tired of it. but i was really glad that many great cover songs came out of it. all of a sudden everyone and their mom was playing this song live. so today i thought that i would share with you my favorite version of the song, performed by ray lamontagne. if you don’t know ray, you are truly missing out. one of the best singer/songwriter types out there. so check out his laid-back acoustic version of the catchiest songs of 2006.

ray lamontagne – crazy (gnarls barkley cover) (removed 8/28)

disCOVERy

Nathan — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:24:01 +0000

other than the beach boys, at least for the past five years, ever since i saw them live @ cain’s ballroom, guster has been my favorite band. i have seen them live four times now and i don’t feel like it is even near enough. and one of my favorite tunes that they do live is a cover of a kooky talking heads song that talks about about how awful this fictional world where all the parking lots and discount stores are gone, and all they have are flowers and mountains and rivers. it is a very fun song and it really fits with guster’s live performance. i was really glad they decided to include on their live cd/dvd they came out with a couple years ago. i hope you enjoy it as much as i do.

guster – (nothing but) flowers (removed 8/28)

also if you have never heard the original, you should definitely check it out. david byrne (the lead singer) is definitely a weirdy, but very entertaining and a great songwriter.

Take Cover

Nathan — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:32:51 +0000

so i absolutely love cover songs, especially when the song is done drastically different than the original, therefore i am going to start off this soon to be regular series on cover songs with mat weddle’s version of outkast’s hey ya. now before you stop reading, just click below and start listening. while he definitely performs the song very differently, he doesn’t change a whole lot, other than the tempo and the instrumentation, and then obviously a different, and in my opinion, a more inviting voice. but for those of you who either hated on this song from the get go, i hope that by listening to this version will recognize how great of a song it really is. and for those that were able to enjoy back in the day but just got sick of hearing it everywhere they went, here is a nice and easy way to enjoy that great melody that made you want to “shake it like a polaroid.”

mat weddle – hey ya (removed 8/28)