Like A Version

[Raising Heel]

How in the world had I never heard of this program before? Yet somehow, completely unrelated, I came across it not once but twice today.

The simple premise: bands you love (or have never heard of) playing covers of songs you love (or have never heard of). Apparently the show airs on Australian public radio so there's a heavy Aussie lean, but the songs cover the entire musical spectrum from Metallica to Pharrell Williams to Adele to Alabama Shakes.

I won't even try to poast some of my favorites because I've spent the last three hours absolutely entertained by this stuff. R Kelly's Ignition (Remix) on sitar? Yes please! LOL this is awesome. Here's the 400+ song playlist. Have fun:

[ETA: Apparently most of the bands play a song or two of their own as well. The cover songs are clearly labeled, though.]

 

[gunslingerdick]

I looked through the youtube vids and barely recognized any of the bands or the songs they were covering. But I like the idea. There's a channel I found on youtube several years ago that does the same thing - AV Club Undercover. I think I've poasted this before but here are a couple of my favorites. Better known bands and songs.





On a related note, have you ever heard of the band Love Canon? They play covers of 80s tunes but with a bluegrass sound. Pretty awesome. I recently saw them live and their shows are a lot of fun. Here is a taste.

 

[Raising Heel]

I looked through the youtube vids and barely recognized any of the bands or the songs they were covering.

That's because you're old and boring, Dad.

Here comes a tl;dr response because I'm laid up on the couch today. I had forgotten about AV Club Undercover. I agree it's pretty awesome. The one thing I don't like is that there is a fixed list of songs and each successive artist has fewer songs to choose from. Also, the songs are more well-known and dated. Like A Version is more current and open-ended, but they're both fun exercises.

I know about your GWAR connection but I'm going to let this rip anyway. The lead singer sounded like an idiot bad-mouthing 70s rock, then turning around 30 seconds later to prove he doesn't have the chops to cover the bands he's criticizing. LOL. That has to be a fun song to cover for guitarists and bassists though.

The Punch Brothers cover was cool. One of my favorite covers is them doing Radiohead's Kid A. What's so impressive is that the original is an atmospheric song produced entirely with electronics yet they manage an incredibly faithful reproduction using just string instruments. I'm going to poast both side-by-side here just because I can.





Freaking LOVE the Love Cannon covers. Just like the Punch Brothers covers, it's a testament to what you can do with incredibly talented musicians. I watched Bruce Hornsby on Austin City Limits a few years ago. He said something in the backstage, post-performance interview that has stuck with me. He said that his two biggest musical influences have been bluegrass and jazz. Why? Because those two genres place a premium on virtuosity. You might argue classical does the same, but it was something I had never really thought about before. [/tl;dr]