Ween’s gleefully obscene and surreal take on the Irish drinking song and maybe, The Pogues. Loads of really, really bad language on this one, so not safe for work, little ones, or people who are very, very sensitive.
More quality snark from Cracker. I don’t know why this wasn’t pushed as a single back in the day, other than the fact that it was too “country sounding” for alternative radio (does anybody but me see the irony in that last observation?). Hopefully, some country singer will cover this and get Mr. Lowery and gang the royalties they’ve deserved over the years. Seriously, Nashville brothers and sisters, this has #1 smash written all over it.
Back in the 1990s, irony and sarcasm came in such heavy quantities, that if you were going to go that route musically, you needed to be really clever and/or have a great band to back up your snark. Fortunately, for Cracker back in the early 1990s, they had it in spades. You may not realize this from the video, but Cracker was one of the five best bands I’ve ever seen live.
Sonic Youth’s eerie, otherworldly cover of the Carpenter’s early 1970s hit would make any short list I’d come up with for best covers of all time. Unlike their 1980s cover of “Addicted to Love,” which reeks of hipster d-baggery, the band really captures the pathos of this song in a unique, sincere, and classy way. On a side note, Kim Gordon has never looked sexier than in this video.
Joan covers Sweet’s 1975 anthem about a girlfriend who can’t make up her mind, if you know what I mean. Sadly, Joan has the same problem with said girlfriend that Sweet’s Brian Connolly did back in the day (probably made worse by the fact that she looks exactly like Carmen Electra). Fortunately for Joan, at 46 (when this was recorded), she still looks and sounds great and can rock the house just as good as she could when she was a teenager with The Runaways.
This is a cover of Leadbelly’s version of “In the Pines,” a folk song that dates back to the 1870s. In “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the 1980 biopic about Loretta Lynn with Sissy Spacek, Lynn sings a version of this song as a lullaby to quiet her baby sister. This cover is arguably Nirvana’s finest hour and like Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt,” if this doesn’t make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you’re not human.
The first couple of minutes are deceptively subdued … and then literally 2:10 in, she bites your head off … painfully. One of the most ferocious songs ever done by any singer, male or female. And that last a capella part will chill the room you’re in by at least 40 degrees.
Siouxsie (minus the Banshees) finally going solo, circa 2007. It’s inspiring to see performers get better as they get older. “Into a Swan” should have been a bigger hit. I’m sorry she hasn’t done another solo album since “MantaRay,” which was really terrific.
This soulful, raw piano acoustic demo is probably my favorite Bowie recording of all time. Thankfully, it was included as a bonus track on one of the more recent rereleases of “Ziggy Stardust.”
One of the best “one-hit wonders” of the 1990s. A fine update of late 1970s Elvis Costello into the age of post-irony. The song sounds like it was recorded in a wind tunnel and is best played extremely loud.
Dave's Strange World 