covered inglory

Ekko at Berkeley Place is running a poll to find the greatest cover versions of the 21^st century. Well done that man. Only time will tell if the results are interesting, or if they’re a Spoon-Postal Service-Death Cab-Feist-Bright Eyes blog-band clusterfuck, but I’m sure plenty of moral good will come of it either way. It’s certainly caused GMS to ruminate on the pros and cons, and on the popularity of covers, ironic or otherwise, in the blogosphere. I didn’t ruminate very much, mind, but below are a few thoughts, and a Pulp video that you ought to watch.

Thinking about it (a bit), it looks like GMS likes three sorts of cover version.

Firstly, there are ‘novelty’ covers of pop, rap or r’n’b songs by white indie types. Careful, though – these walk a fine line called irony, and only the ones that “cross boundaries of race and authenticity” and “ask searching questions about the creation and consumption of art” are any good: sorry, Travis’ ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, Electric Soft Parade’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, the Vines’ ‘Ms Jackson’, Magic Numbers’ ‘Crazy In Love’ and Biffy Clyro’s ‘Umbrella’. Duran Duran, please leave the room. This genre reaches its apex along the Will Oldham-R. Kelly axis. A sexy axis indeed.

Secondly, there are old men and women getting down with the kids. This started with Johnny Cash, whose American Recordings stuff is sure to feature on Ekko’s list, and has since been taken up by all manner of ageing pop types. Mavis Staples, Charlie Louvin, Joan Baez, Solomon Burke – well done. Neil Diamond – just stick to ‘Sweet Caroline’, eh?

Thirdly, there are hip youngsters discovering / inventing / challenging their roots. By “roots”, we mostly mean Bruce Springsteen. And occasionally ‘Hallelujah’ or ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The front page of Elbows and the Hype Machine will be full of these, making a few choice covers an essential marketing tool for up-and-coming interweb faves. Hence the recent tributes-cum-hipster-feeding-frenzies in honour of Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Pixies, John Fahey and (cut-and-paste style) Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian. None of those have made the grade, though the Dylan one sounds interesting.

Enough! Galactic Mystery Solvers will be posting and writing about its top twenty-something tracks over the next couple of weeks. Some of them may have been recorded before 2000 – the precise details are often hard to track down. In some cases, the originals are attributed to people like Elvis or Elton John, who didn’t write them, but made them famous.

In the meantime, watch Pulp – ‘Bad Cover Version’

Album Review – Richard Hawley – ‘Lady’s Bridge’

Richard Hawley's breakthrough record, Cole’s Corner, should have won the (increasingly inane) Mercury Prize. But the pressure to follow it brought the possibility that his particular charm appeal be diluted. Another cult favourite, Rufus Wainwright, suffered just that fate, releasing the worst material of his career just as he started to garner mainstream attention. While far superior to the latest Rufus record, Lady’s Bridge suffers some of the same problems. Musically, it retreads much of the ground covered by Cole’s Corner: the sound is bigger, cleaner and poppier, but basically unchanged. A few tracks add to the palette: ‘I’m Looking For Someone To Find Me’ mixes Dusty Springfield strings with uptempo British Beat / skiffle rhythms and Lee Hazelwood’s knowingness. It’s a polished set, but feels too much like two or three standouts, padded to album length.

Hawley’s first two albums, Lowedges and Late Night Final, succeeded because they created a sense of intimacy and self-containment: his private, personal passion for dated, faded music flew in the face of fashion, but for those in the know, that made his underdog charm all the more affecting. Cole’s Corner was a bigger deal, but it maintained that intimacy through a deliberate sense of time and place, while the strength of its songs made the crossover to the mainstream seem justified and heartening.

Hawley uses a location as an organising theme again. But where Cole’s Corner was a static location where romances were played out, Lady’s Bridge looks at a river – impersonal, always moving, leading him towards broader treatments of continuity and change. Occasionally this pays off: lead single ‘Tonight the Streets Are Ours’ addresses marginalised youth as a timeless group, with a gravitas and historical perspective that bands like the Arctic Monkeys could never approximate; Hawley does this without seeming preachy or smart-arsed, but with authority and passion, making it an absolutely brilliant pop song. Opener ‘Valentine’ could be an Orbison original, with sufficient weight and drama to invoke a timeless sense of romanticism. On ‘Roll River Roll’ the historical perspective is further widened as Hawley addresses the 1864 Sheffield flood – a Victorian Katrina in which a poorly constructed dam burst, claiming the lives of hundreds of local workers.

But as a whole, the dark, sombre and reflective mood that suffuses Hawley’s work suffers from a lack of emotional context: Lady’s Bridge is far less personal than his previous work. Pulp, for whom Hawley used to work, made stunning use of the river concept in ‘Wickerman’, the centrepiece of their final album: the song combines personal reminiscences and romantic regrets with a real sense of the changing face of Sheffield, as evidenced in the factories that line the Wicker, and in the urban myths that haunt it. Nothing on Lady’s Bridge comes close. You don’t expect it to: Hawley was never as open as Jarvis Cocker, hiding instead behind the glasses, the quiff, and the 50s reference points. But in reaching beyond his private world of romantic failures and late night café’s, Hawley has diluted the force of his music.

More fun:

Artist homepage

A fun bunch of rare Hawley, including great Jesus and Mary Chain and Everly Brothers covers, right here.

And even more Hawley on the Hype Machine

Pulp – ‘Wickerman’ (from We Love Life)

Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley – ‘Disneytime’ (live BBC session)

Previously on GMS

Buy Lady’s Bridge

"culture. sophistication. genius. a little bit more than an 'ot dog, know what i mean?"

GMS would like to register hearty approval of feted directorial wunderkid Paul W.S. Anderson's plan to remake The Long Good Friday with "contemporary overtones", and to set it in Miami, "the melting pot of crap", according to one imdb commentator.

This floats our large, gleaming-white party boat for five distinct reasons:

(i) after early career misfires like Shopping and Event Horizon, Anderson hit his stride with Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat and Alien vs Predator

(ii) Rick Ross was born to resurrect the Bob Hoskins role

(iii) "contemporary overtones"

(iv) the prospect of an ageing pierce brosnan resurrecting his role as a speedos-wearing IRA assassin

(iv) words from the Fresh Prince:
"Dont get me wrong Charlotte Town got it going on
and New York is the city that we know dont sleep.
And we all know the LA and Philly stay jiggy, but on the snake,
Miami bringing heat for real, ya'll dont understand."
On the snake, people. I repeat, on the snake.

in tribute:

the handsome family - 'so long' (live in amsterdam, 2001)
gillian welch - 'good till now' (from hell among the yearlings)
morrissey - 'friday mourning' (from you are the quarry [deluxe])

Pulp - 'Bad Cover Version'

more fun:

buy handsome family
homepage

buy gillian welch
buy morrissey
buy pulp