JCC Amph The JCC mixtape, Part II (now complete!) - full playlist link in OP

At some point we should do a mixtape of the tom songs we found cathartic.

 

This is a really nice playlist.

 

Two songs I dug on this list. Both pretty different from each other. Chest Wide Open, a rather bouncy, "fun" song for the topic. I Can't Hear You, I absolutely love the guitars in this one. And in the end, the guitars win out

 

Listening under protest, and casting my vote for the unlisted "are you ready for some baseball" by sloe t which I cannot believe is not on the list.

 

Works for me.

This one is exceptionally good. The first half in particular is amazing. I think the only one of those I'd heard before is I Won't Be Found, but I'm going to say all of those first six songs are basically perfect. Like those were all fantastic and after those first three, I was like, "I don't know how I'm going to even pick off of this list and I'm only three tracks in." Then Dessa hit and, um, yeah, that's my pick. I'd never even heard of her before this list, but, oh my God, she's amazing. I'm going to definitely be checking her out some more.

Only track I didn't really care for was the Hot Chip track and I just have a weird thing with Hot Chip. Hard to put my finger on it, but I just don't really care for them for whatever reason. Other than that, they were all good and the first six and the Clientele track are downright great.

Also, since tom is too humble to do it, someone else really does need to do an all sloe t playlist next round. My provisional vote goes to the slowpoke king which might genuinely have the best banjo of any song ever, no exaggeration.

 

that's actually a brown bird sample! now we've come full circle.

 

Glad for the extension! Will definitely give this a listen tomorrow (my time)

 

so, um, yeah. PHENOMENAL playlist all around. But, after listening to it once - and then listening to it multiple times - I have no idea how I've lasted this long in life without that Matches to Paper Dolls song in my life, and it easily gets my vote.

 

I've been struggling to choose between Chest Wide Open and Say for the last couple of days. Then I had to go look up the first two tracks on YouTube as they weren't available on Spotify here, and End of Days is a moody masterpiece. So it's been a struggle.

It really is one of my favourite playlists in either of the two iterations of the thread.

 

thanks for listening everybody. i think this is your last chance to vote!

 

Appears to be an all covers list. Nice!

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is the best kind of cover, where Devo makes it completely unrecognizable.

 

Sturgill Simpson is an auto vote for me. My favorite musician on the planet, and his cover of In Bloom was my gateway to his music.

 

I didn't go for "completely unrecognizable," but they are all intended to be what I call "transformative covers," ie. very different from the original in a stylistic way. I also tried to pick songs where I could be more or less confident that you guys would know the original and thus be able to appreciate the stylistic departure.

I'll get my "anecdotes" up tomorrow. They're really less anecdotes and more just me waxing rhapsodic about why I love each and every one of these songs with all my heart, so more skippable than last time, but I'll put them up if you guys want to read them. Obviously, I recommend listening to the playlist before reading any of my anecdotes.

EDIT: Also, glad to see Matches to Paper Dolls won from tom's list. I'd have been fine with a solid six to seven of those winning. And Matches to Paper Dolls and I Won't Be Found were my two favorites, so when they were tied, I was like, "I'm fine with this either way." But Matches was my personal favorite, so good choice, guys.

 

Now that was a fun theme for a playlist - love it. Having trouble deciding between my three favorites. Might need to listen to it again to get there.

That rendition of This Land is Your Land is just ... wow. Phenomenal. But, that version of "Your Cheatin' Heart" is so different than the original, and impactful in ways the original couldn't be. I thought it was a two-song race, and then the cover of "One" came on, and I'm not sure I can not vote for any of those three now. Great picks, R1.5. Just great all around.

 

All right, here are my "liner notes" for this list; that's probably a more accurate description than "anecdotes" for this batch of songs. I've spoilered them, so you don't have to scroll past a massive post every time you open this page, but I left all the titles out of the spoiler tags because I decided to also include, just in case some of the originals are more obscure than I think, the original artists, so if anybody wants to look up the originals for the sake of contrast they can do that.

Transformative Covers

So, my first playlist was very personal and very emotional. I suppose to some degree, every playlist is both of those things. I certainly have personal emotions connected with all of these songs as well, but this one’s more a conceptual thing, songs that fit into a specific category and are less . . . confessional, I guess. So, I love covers. And so I wanted to use this playlist to look at truly transformative covers, where an artist takes a pre-existing song and reinvents it in a pretty radical way. I like covers that aren’t super-transformative as well; sometimes you just want to hear a great artist sing a great song in a simple way and so that can work as well, but I’m a sucker for the covers that really rework a song.

A couple of notes: it is, to me, somewhat unfortunate that the slow & mournful cover of an uptempo pop song has become the trope that it has. This is mostly down to trailers, I think, where its become a real fad to take a lively pop song and have someone just about weep over it while dragging the tempo to death. Those have reached a point where I think it’s almost considered a joke. Likewise, taking a slow, serious song and just revving it up to a hundred miles an hour can also come across as a joke. So I want to say that, while there are a couple of laughs on this playlist, I like all of these songs unironically. I don’t consider any of them to just be purely jokes; a couple of them kind of flirt with it, but none of these are outright parodies in my opinion. Secondly, I left off some of the best transformative covers because I wanted this list to skew obscure. There’s at least one here that I feel like might be too well known, but I didn’t want this to just be a greatest hits playlist, so I purposely left off the following: Hendrix’s version of Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower, Johnny Cash’s version of NIN’s Hurt & Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Those would all qualify, but they’re just too well known in my opinion. I also tried to leave off people interpreting “standards.” I wanted this to be people covering songs that are strongly associated with one other artist. Anyway, enough talk. Let’s get to it.

Desperado – Me First & the Gimme Gimmes (OG: Eagles)

Spoiler

You need a track like this to kick off a playlist. I almost went with their cover of Much Too Young to Feel This Damn Old as a nod to solojones’ affection for Garth Brooks (and on that one, they play the first half straight, proving they’ve got the chops to really do country right), but this is probably genuinely my favorite song of theirs. I love the original and love it more, I’d say, but this isn’t a desecration; it’s just a great high-energy version. And, as a bonus, it has the one explicit joke on this list, the “too three four” bit at the end.

Eve of Destruction – The Dickies (OG: Barry McGuire)

Spoiler

Now, you wanna talk desecration, The Dickies are here for you. One of the great unfortunately forgotten bands to come out of the late-70s punk era, they did a few of these maniacally fast, discordant covers and this one is my favorite. I feel like Barry McGuire’s folky Dylan-imitation protest song Eve of Destruction is almost entirely forgotten these days, which is too bad because it is a good song, though this version certainly is the more apocalyptic of the versions. So I almost went with The Dickies’ version of Sound of Silence, a song more people would know; I did kind of want these to be songs where people would know the original version. But I just love this one too much; it's the best of their covers by far in my opinion so I just couldn’t sub in Sound of Silence as much as the “rules” tried to make me. And anyway I’m not entirely sure knowing the original matters in this case. I actually know the lyrics to the original well enough to sing along to it and there’s a bit in this song where even I couldn’t tell what the **** the singer was saying.

Thrift Shop – Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox (OG: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Wanz)

Spoiler

So here’s one that is far and away my favorite when compared to the original. I’m not going to say the original is completely without its charms; some of the lyrics are genuinely quite funny and I do love conceptually the notion of a hip-hop artist building their coolest outfits out of thrift store buys instead of high fashion. But the song only really came to life for me when Scott Bradlee turned into this ragtime romp. Of course, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox . . . this is their whole deal, doing covers of modern songs in old styles. And I’m not going to say that hasn’t occasionally felt a little gimmicky over the years, but when it works, it really, really works: yes, Dancing Queen has always needed a hot jazz trumpet solo; I didn’t know it either until now, but I do know it now. Anyway, this was the first of their songs I ever encountered and it dates back to the very beginning of the project, featuring a minimal set up of three musicians and one singer; Bradlee’s even still on keyboard, not a real piano. But I like the more stripped down feel of this one; as a pianist myself, I’m incredibly impressed by Bradlee as a musician and when there’s not a horn section, his piano is right up front which is where I love it. Robyn Anderson does a phenomenal vocal, going incredibly fast and nailing every emphasis exactly right. I would generally turn my nose up at a cover that dared to replace the f-word with “freaking,” but I just can’t resist this absolutely delightful song. Of all the songs on this list, I would venture to say that this is the one I’ve listened to the most. I probably discovered it a year or so after it came out and I doubt a week has gone by since without me getting this one in my rotation. It never fails to lift my spirits.

Comfortably Numb – Scissor Sisters (OG: Pink Floyd)

Spoiler

I feel like Scissor Sisters flamed out pretty fast and not without some controversy, but that first album was ******* great and this disco version of a classic Pink Floyd rock ballad was right there in the middle of the fracas. I feel like this was something of a hit when it first came out, but I also feel like I knew more people who hated it than liked it, just speaking personally. Regardless, I don’t think I know a single other person who will make the so controversial yet so brave statement I will: it’s better than the original. I like the original, don’t get me wrong, but The Wall isn’t my favorite Floyd album and Comfortably Numb isn’t my favorite track on The Wall, so it’s a ways down there. I suppose the dreamy haziness of the original fits the lyrics more than this arrangement does, but, be honest, it’s always been a LITTLE long, right? No? Okay, well, now you hate me. Regardless, even if this isn’t better than the original, it’s still just an absolutely banger and if that scream on the “there’ll be no more” line in this one doesn’t get you out of your seat, check your pulse.

(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – DEVO (OG: The Rolling Stones)

Spoiler

Okay, I promise I won’t make the case that this is better than the original, but I guess I like it better. Again, love the original, but when I want to hear this song now, it’s this weird, off-beat cover that I always go for instead of the original. Like Comfortably Numb, I almost left this one off my list for being too famous; can you call something obscure once it’s been used in a Scorsese movie? If it’s Casino, yes, I guess I think I can. I don’t have a lot to say about this one; it’s just self-evidently what it is, which is jaw-droppingly amazing. At the time, the label thought it was downright offensive; they forced the band to play the tape for Jagger himself before they’d allow the band to release it. Jagger, so they tell it, put down his glass of wine, got up and started dancing. I wonder if it was Mothersbaugh’s robotic breakdown of the word “baby” that got him. It still gets me. Every time.

Heartbreak Hotel – John Cale (OG: Elvis Presley)

Spoiler

When people talk about the members of the Velvet Underground’s solo careers, Lou Reed just always overshadows John Cale, even though the band’s very first commercial release, an instrumental called Loop, was composed and created by Cale. But, having listened to a fair amount of both Reed & Cale as solo artists, I think it’s probably more or less fair that he comes second. Which isn’t to say that Cale wasn’t capable of absolute genius at times. This demented cover of Heartbreak Hotel is a case in point. Cale intones the lyrics more than he sings them over a grinding guitar riff, a shrieking siren and a howling choir of the damned and, Floyd Cramer’s gorgeous piano licks on the original aside, this is another one that has replaced the original in my personal rotation. Elvis’ version has some emotion to it, but it’s heartbreak of a pretty pop variety; you listen to Cale’s version and you’ll remember the origin of the song: the lyrics were based on a suicide note.

This Land is Your Land – Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings (OG: Woody Guthrie)

Spoiler

Sharon Jones sadly passed away a couple of years ago at the age of sixty; she had pancreatic cancer, but then she had a stroke while watching the results of the 2016 Presidential Election. She died the next day and, yes, she actually said it was Donald Trump’s fault, so, in case you were looking for yet another reason to hate that miserable ***********, well, there it is: he killed one of the greatest soul singers of all time. **** that guy. But nobody could kill the body of music she left behind, which includes this funky, soulful version of Guthrie’s folky original. Just earlier this year, a compilation of cover songs she’d done over the years was released and it had about the best title of a cover album I’ve ever heard, Just Dropped In to See What Condition My Rendition Was In. There’s nothing on it, I don’t think, that hasn’t been released before, but it’s nice to have her covers in one place. Two last notes: Bob Dylan used to say this song should be the National Anthem; I don’t disagree and it definitely needs to be this version. Secondly, kudos to Jones for leaving in the verse about the “Private Property” sign, a verse that is usually omitted because of its pro-socialism, anti-landlord sentiments. Take that, Trump.

In Bloom – Sturgill Simpson (OG: Nirvana)

Spoiler

What is the sound of country music in one voice? It’s been many things over the years: Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Randy Travis . . and now Sturgill Simpson is the latest in a line of artists who just encapsulate everything about country music in their voices. It says something about the music industry that Simpson isn’t really known outside of the country genre and something else about the music industry that he’s barely known inside of it. But then this is a genre where the torch is currently being carried by Luke Bryan, as untalented and uncharismatic a performer as I’ve ever seen. So how exactly does all this add up to turning a Nirvana song into a country weeper? I sure don’t know, but I do know that Nirvana is one of those nearly uncoverable artists. I mean, I feel like over the course of nearly thirty years now we’ve had the Tori Amos version of Teen Spirit and then this and that’s about all in terms of covers that are actually good. Oh, wait, did Scala & Kolacny Brothers do Smells Like Teen Spirit? Probably. But that’s not on this list. This gorgeous track is.

Your Cheatin’ Heart – Ray Charles (OG: Hank Williams)

Spoiler

And speaking of giving a country spin to a non-country original, let’s flip the script with this amazingly good version of a Hank Williams tune which was part of a two album project Ray Charles did covering country songs, Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music. (Side note: one of Sturgill Simpson’s albums is called Metamodern Sounds in Country Music). And much as I love the originals of a lot of these tracks, Ray Charles is just one of the all time greats. This track starts with an annoyingly loud choir and orchestra building to a crescendo, but then Charles comes in with his piano and if you’re not on board by the time he’s played just two chords on the piano, I don’t know what’s going on with you. His performance here, both vocally and instrumentally, is just perfect. I doubt I need to defend Ray Charles at this point, so I won’t go on at great length. But this is just a genius at the top of his game. And when you’re dredging more sorrow out of a song than Hank Williams did . . . man, you’re digging.

Medley: Nega Maluca / Billie Jean / Eleanor Rigby – Caetano Veloso (OG: Michael Jackson / The Beatles)

Spoiler

I don’t even remember for sure how I stumbled across this song; it’s been more than a decade ago, I’m sure. But it was my introduction to Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian singer-songwriter, and I instantly fell in love with the soft tenderness of his vocal tones. He’s got started doing more psychedelic stuff in the 60s, but somewhere along the way, his sound mellowed, at least part of the time, into the equivalent of a fine wine and the album this one’s from, a self-titled album from 1986, is stripped down, acoustic and this is one of only two English tracks on it, the other being a glorious melancholy reading of the Cole Porter standard, Get Out of Town, but the whole album is phenomenally good. On this track, Veloso melds two classics and a snippet of an old Brazilian folk song in order to create a really astounding work of art. Billie Jean really is my favorite Michael Jackson song; it’s a groove, no question, but it’s also his darkest song and his bleakest really. The sound is, for Jackson, stripped back and that unstoppable bass & drum groove never pauses, never flags and, to all intents and purposes, never even changes really; the drums never even break for a fill. That groove is dark, sweaty, paranoid and claustrophobic all while still getting your head nodding and your foot tapping. It’s a song with a lot of anger and fear simmering and Jackson’s vocal tricks all feel just on the verge of out of control. It’s an unsettling song, but it also just undeniably slaps. But Veloso brings everything down and he unlocks another emotion buried there: sorrow. There’s a deep sadness in this version of the song and by bringing in the quote from Eleanor Rigby, he reminds us that, at the end of the day, Billie Jean is a song about a connection that isn’t real and his empathy lies with everyone in this song. This is a song that just does everything I want a cover to do; it recontextualizes, excavates and reevaluates everything, but in a very simple and intuitive way. I’ve thought about this song a lot since I first heard it, but my initial reaction was that pure emotion that I’m always chasing. The way Veloso sings it, Billie Jean feels different. I feel different.

Hungry Heart – Scala & Kolacny Brothers (OG: Bruce Springsteen)

Spoiler

It feels like the fad of slow, mournful covers of up-beat hits has really taken off in the last few years; but this choir from Belgium has been at it for decades, their first album coming out in 1996. They came up in the world in a big way in 2010 when their version of Creep was used in a trailer for The Social Network and since then their music has been around in commercials, on television and in the movies. This is the kind of thing that can feel, I don’t know, “gimmicky” is not the best word probably, but it’s the one coming to mind. To what degree are these guys kind of goofing? Well, look, they’ve done Fat Bottomed Girls, so at least part of the time, yeah, it’s a joke. But their ethereal vocals often really work at unlocking a song and making you look at it in a genuinely different way. Hungry Heart’s always been one of those songs where an upbeat and high energy performance obfuscates a really bleak set of lyrics, so it’s a perfect fit for this kind of deconstruction. And, can I just say, I love that, over the decades, Steven Kolacny’s piano has stayed as central as it has to the group’s sound. A lot of groups would have started recording with a full orchestra by now, but Scala & Kolacny Brothers keeps it simple and those gorgeous piano interludes have a lot to do with why I love them as much as I do.

One – Chris Cornell (OG: U2 / Metallica)

Spoiler

Chris Cornell was a guy who loved trotting out covers in his live shows and, honestly, I doubt he ever did a bad one. His covers were usually pretty straight though and not particularly transformative. The joy was just in hearing Cornell’s wonderful voice tell the story of a song you knew, not in hearing him deconstruct it or transform it. Because that really was what he brought to a cover, just an open emotional honesty that really put you right there in the song because that’s where he was. And he does that here, but he does something different as well. I think for most music lovers, the fact that there are two iconic songs called One has always kind of been a thing where you go, “Huh, that’s interesting,” and then move on. But Cornell kept thinking about it and the result was this track, a mash-up of the devastating lyrics to Metallica’s One, sung to the sad backing of U2’s One. And I don’t really have a lot to say about it; it’s just perfect and I remember hearing it for the first time, in bootleg form, and just kind of shaking my head and feeling like I’d never quite heard anything like it. After Cornell’s death, the song thankfully got an official release on a four-disc compilation that spanned his entire career, including selections from his solo work as well as his work with Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog & Audioslave. And so it gets to be on Spotify and thusly on my list. Hope you enjoyed it and I’ll let Chris sign off for me with a simple “Thank you.” RIP, dude.

 

Not forgotten by those who have been there done that. It's a great song.

 

Tough choice here. Its really hard not to just vote for Ray Charles. Desperado is a pretty cool version of a song that I never really liked much. This Land Is You Land is very cool. This version of Thrift Shop was pretty cool too. I actually liked the One "mash-up" as well. I CAN say I'm not voting for Comfortably Numb or Heartbreak Hotel.

 

The video for Devo's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

 

That guitar solo in Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb is one of the best guitar solos ever.

No, Rogue, it's not too long. It's perfect.

I remember when I first heard the Scissors version: on a bus in Scotland. I couldn't believe my ears. I had to get the CD.

Progress in music is when a mashup that once would have seemed tasteless turns out awesome to the young at heart, and that's what that was.