The Pre-Work Blues: That's one sexy igloo...

I love cover versions.

It started a few years ago when the BBC ran a gorgeous Christmas advert of people tumbling over one another and ripping off their clothes, to the strain of Nouvelle Vague's cover of 'I Just Can't Get Enough'. I bought the album and I was hooked.

Thereafter when I had my show on uni radio, and my partner wouldn't turn up, I would sneakily be playing almost solid cover versions for the whole hour. I loved them - they made my brain tingle - the mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar, the overload of new information.

You learnt more about the artist doing the cover - their influences (or who they mocked), their musicianship.

You learnt more about the song itself - suddenly the lyrics were so soulful when everything was slowed down, or maybe they were injected with glorious joy when speeded up. A bassline would surface, clever chord changes would peek out. Perhaps the whole genre changed and suddenly the 'interconnectiveness-of-all-things-music-and-in-life-generally' was revealed to you and made the universe seem more harmonious as a whole.

Sometimes, not always.

My personal rules for cover versions are that they should have a some resemblance to original in both lyrics and melody and/or chord changes. After that you can do whatever you want. No good reciting the lyrics of New York, New York to some synth bass completely altered from the original. (It's happened, and it's horrible). They're my rules, I've written them down, and they have absolutely no weight, so there.

The internet has been a huge gift for lovers of covers, with a number of blogs putting up fine examples, so many that they can be more specialised than just covers - they can be Disney covers (http://www.coveringthemouse.com) or covers solely in the style of folk or by folk artists (http://coverlaydown.com - the latest post is an emotional one featuring a fund-raising tribute you should read). The Coverville podcast has exploded (http://coverville.com/), and the Cover Me website (http://www.covermesongs.com/) now looks as slick as anything hosting (rolls eyes) original music. There's even covers-only albums coming out from Radio 1.

I'm a small fish in a big pond, but I'd like to highlight the covers that keep knocking about in my ears, for any newbies out there.


Today's the end of the long weekend for everyone in the UK, which sucks because that means there's school or work tomorrow. It doesn't matter which. They're both awful.


Relax a bit and say the weekend wasn't a waste because you heard the most amazing cover version.

It's Jenny Owen Youngs' cover of Nelly's Hot in Herre. It's set in an igloo. It's fantastic, and if nothing you can say that you saw a woman hit on a polar bear.