Covers Scrapbook: Ida Redig - Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac)

My goodness, stripping Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere from it's incredible original bassline (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsglRLoUdtc) should be a disaster.

But this cover is stunning, so, again, unsurprisingly, I know nothing.

But I will take a random punt that the advertising company for John Lewis will be weeping under their pillows for not commissioning this.

Playlist Corner: Happy International Women's Day!!

So I make playlists.

I like sharing music, and then hearing people go 'this song is great, I can't believe I haven't heard it before!' and then I jump up and punch the air as if I had written the song myself.





For non-Spotifyers:
Happy International Women's Day!! | Listen for free at bop.fm

It doesn't make much sense, but it makes me happy, and it makes other people boogie, so that's the important thing.

It started with compilation CD I made for my brother with called "19 Ways To Call Me Al" which included 19 consecutive cover versions of Paul Simon's song, and he loved it. It really is a great song. It worked.

Then the annual Christmas playlists (I can't even start to explain the time and effort...)

But then, as well as a reason to seek and out and discover new music, it was a way to rediscover music. These songs - what were they about, where would they fit, what made them work, how would they make people feel?

Songs I hadn't thought for ages would pop into my mind (oh my god, Janelle Monae! Bobbie Gentry and Fancy! I loved that song, I can't believe I haven't thought about it in so long!), and it was like finding them the first time.

So I make playlists. You could too. And you should listen to mine.


The Run-Down

1. Della Reese - Whatever Lola Wants

Slinky.

2.  No Doubt - Just A Girl

The lyrics are just fantastic, the music swaggers.

3.  India.Arie - Video

The first line is about body hair. The first line. Respect. Supremely chilled and quietly confident.

4.  Superchick - One Girl Revolution

I love how young the singer sounds, it's the 'montage song' from so many teen movies. But the lyrics are definite, and the bass line grooves.

5.  Lesley Gore - You Don't Own Me

6.  Alicia Keys - Superwoman

7.  Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl

8.  Bobbie Gentry - Fancy

9.  Janelle Monáe - Q.U.E.E.N. (feat. Erykah Badu)

10.  Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Bad Reputation

11.  Helen Shapiro - Shop Around

12.  The Belle Brigade - Be Like Him (How To Be Like Him)

13.  Run The World (Girls) - Beyonce

14.  Nostalga Records - Peggy Lee - The Lady Is A Tramp

15.  Marina and The Diamonds - Oh No!

16.  Kelly Clarkson - Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)

17.  Taylor Swift - Shake It Off

18.  Cyndi Lauper - Hey Now (Girls Just Want to Have Fun)

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.