Dance in front yo' mirror when you're on the phone.

Wang Chung "Hot in Herre" (Nelly cover)
Thanks to reader MuffinMan who was able to get me this MP3 so you can download the best cover performed on the otherwise godawful run of Hit Me Baby One More Time.

So ... in ... phase.

I know it's difficult to believe given my passions for reality TV, pop culture, retro hits and cover songs, but I haven't really been watching Hit Me Baby One More Time. I figured it would be really depressing. And from what little snippets I've seen here and there, it seems I was right. Still, I heard good things about Wang Chung's version of Nelly's "Hot in Herre." And, you know, it really was pretty good. You can hear it at WC's MySpace page. Enjoy.

I've waited hours for this.

Like all good aging hipsters, I once had a really big thing for the Cure. And it's my birthday and I have nothing better to do than relive my thing for the Cure. If you feel me on this, you should check out Plainsong.net, which features a pretty comprehensive list of "selective" covers (I think he or she means "selected," but I'll be nice since I don't think English is his/her first language) and tribute albums. I respectfully disagree with many of the author's opinions on which tribute albums and songs are worthwhile, but it's a nice list nonetheless.

From Fictional: A Tribute to the Cure

Blipp! "The Caterpillar" (Cure cover)


From Give Me the Cure: DC Bands Cover the Cure
By far the most emo/indie of the Cure tributes.

Chisel "Six Different Ways" (Cure cover)
I love Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, don't get me wrong, but oh how I miss Chisel. And this song, as well as any track on The Head on the Door, reminds me of one of the longest make-out sessions of my high school career. I think my then boyfriend (now gay, of course) let the cassette play through on automatic reverse about three times as we cavorted in his basement.

DJ Bootious Maximus "The Love Cats" (Cure cover)

Tuscadero "Boys Don't Cry" (Cure cover)

Dismemberment Plan "Close to Me" (Cure cover)


From Into a Sea of Cure (an Argentine tribute to The Cure)

Shh... "Lullaby" (Cure cover)


From Pink Pig—The Whole Cure in the Mirror
A whole bunch of Cure fans you've most likely never heard of covering every Cure song that exists.

Lucho Giesso "A Few Hours After This" (Cure cover)
Many of my favorite Cure songs were B-sides, and this is my all-time favorite. Well, not this version, which is overwrought to say the least.

Damon Boyce "A Man Inside My Mouth" (Cure cover)
Another B-side that makes me nostalgic. Sorta. My freshman year of high school, we hit the gymnastics portion of the semester and my crazy friend who was on the school dance squad made us do a routine to this song (the original, of course, as this version did not exist back then). That she chose it was cool I guess, but gym-class gymnastics routines? Not so much.


From 15 Imaginary Songs: A Tribute to the Cure

The Caves "Just Like Heaven" (Cure cover)

Morbid Poetry "Push" (Cure cover)

Decadence "Disintegration" (Cure cover)


From Disintegrated: A Hardcore Tribute to the Cure
Why?

Cave In "Plainsong" (Cure cover)

Bad Luck Thirteen Riot Extravaganza "Pictures of You" (Cure cover)
I hate shit like this, and not just because it's a cover of my least favorite Cure hit ever and not just because it's hardcore. What I hate is the idea of a band badmouthing the types of people most likely to be Cure fans on a tribute album to the Cure. Yeah, we get it, you're cool and above it all and would never shop at Hot Topic although your band name implies otherwise. You showed us!

And, you know, I never do this (or at least I've never done it before), in celebration of my own birthday, I've decided to repost a track I posted ages ago. It's one of my favorite Cure covers and you can find it here.

Chameleon, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature.

I'm a terrible music blogger, I know. Updating only once a week? That sucks, right? But, man, I don't know how all the other MP3 bloggers do it. Daily updates? Huge essays? I'm a total slacker and I can't even find the time for that level of dedication.

I'm really going to try to post more frequently. My birthday is a week from today and I generally make my New Year's Resolutions then. Maybe I can up it to two or three entries a week for a while. Unless there's something really good on TV ...

El Nino "Reptile"< (Lisa Germano cover)
This is just one of hundreds of songs I've snagged from Musical Family Tree, a massive, ever-growing collection of MP3s from Bloomington/Indianapolis-based acts. Some of these bands are still performing and some are now defunct, but many are the bands I spent a lot of time adoring in the early/mid-1990s when I was in Bloomington. And not just because they were my friends and acquaintances. El Nino was one of said bands. And so was Lisa Germano, for a while. I miss Bloomington.

If you have the time and interest, you might find a handful of interesting covers by interesting acts in the giant MFT catalog and it would take me forever to locate, list and link them all, but I'll point you in the direction of a few:

1. Vess Ruhtenberg (United States Three, among others) and Michelle Marchessault (ex Gerunds and Sardina, both of which you should check out) performing "Blue Moon"
2. Sardina performing "Me and My Arrow," which I originally posted around this time last year.
3. Admiral Stereo has covers of "Gouge Away" and "Honey Pie," among others.

I hope at least some of you take the time to check out the music offered at that site. Jeb's got a real labor of love going on there, and I for one couldn't be more appreciative.

Five in Love "Smooth" (Santana/Rob Thomas cover)
I can't hear any version of this song without remembering the horrifically hot summer of 1999 in which I was commuting daily to the Borders in Deerfield, where I briefly worked as an interim manager. One of the worst summers of my life, though I didn't really know that at the time. I think I'm over it enough to enjoy this swingy cover though. I think ...

In Flames "Land of Confusion" (Genesis cover)
I never thought I'd say this, but more and more, I enjoy Swedish death metal.

The Minus 5 "Wicked Annabella" (Kinks cover)
A competent cover by Scott McCaughey's ever-changing chamber-pop collective. Man, I love Ken Stringfellow.

The London Punkharmonic Orchestra "Ever Fallen In Love?" (Buzzcocks cover)
Ah. Classical punk covers. Were they the catalyst for all those ridiculous "String Quartet Tributes" out there nowadays? Perhaps. But I'm not holding it against them. Hell, anything is better than the Fine Young Cannibals version.

Pop Will Eat Itself "Games Without Frontiers" (Peter Gabriel cover)
In my college dorm there was a very friendly, straight-laced looking girl named Erika who was really into bands like PWEI. It kind of freaked me out. In a good way. I like this cover way more than the original, but that's not saying much since I'm one of the few people who seem to be in the "Oh my God, I fucking hate Peter Gabriel" camp.

Replicants "The Bewlay Brothers" (David Bowie cover)
I didn't really embrace the Replicants at first, but I see now the error of my ways. This is one of my favorite Bowie songs covered in a really engaging way. Yay for that.

Ushuaia Rocks! "Pink Moon" (Nick Drake cover)
Argentine punk bands. I can never get enough.

Also: Remember the database of Smiths/Morrissey covers I posted a few entries ago? Well, here are a couple for other acts. (Note: These are databases of INFORMATION. I'm not implying that you can find the actual tracks there.)

Dylan covers

U2 covers

Weirdo-electro Monday

I've been amused by industrial and electronic covers lately, so I'm foisting them upon you. Some of these are Faustesque or Negativlandy and some are just industrogoth techno and so on. All are pretty strange.

Dimthings "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder cover)

Plastics "Last Train to Clarksville" (Monkees cover)

Coercion "Cars" (Gary Numan cover)

Jeff and Jane Hudson "The Girl [Boy] from Ipanema" (de Moraes/Gimbel/Jobim)

Sun Yama "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (Bob Dylan cover)

Second Delay "Born to be Alive" (Patrick Hernandez cover)

Dark Distant Spaces "Space Age Love Song" (Flock of Seagulls cover)

Familiar Faces "Mad World" (Tears for Fears cover)

Battery "Gangsta's Paradise" (Coolio cover)

Pinker Tone "Louie Louie" (Kingsmen cover)

Sista Mannen Pa Jordon "I Want You to Want Me" (Cheap Trick cover)

Turner "Right by Your Side" (Eurythmics cover)
Now, I'm all for a band covering a song and making it their own, but I'm not so down with someone taking the lyrics from a song and completely rewriting the music. But whatever.

I have to let that raga drop.

Sorry again for not hosting my own tracks yet this week, my ISP at home has been having issues, to say the least. [And I recently acquired a DVR unit and a record player, both of which have been monopolizing my time of late.] Until my ISP fixes itself, I hope you don't mind that I keep directing you elsewhere. For instance:

Reader Nik directed me to Music for Maniacs, an MP3 blog dedicated to outsider music which, as such, features a ton of weirdo covers. How I was unaware of this awesome blog previously is beyond me, since it's right up my alley. Right now, there are some pretty cool offerings, including but not limited to Rachid Taha's excellent cover of "Rock the Casbah," which I've been meaning to post myself for a while.

Reader Jonathan alerted me to the existence of Like a Version, a compilation of live covers recorded by Australian youth radio station triple j, which I hope to acquire soon.

Alos, I suspect many of you do this already, but if you're not getting the Coverville podcasts, you're really missing out.

A light that never goes out.

I'm not sure why I've waited this long to hip all you Smiths/Morrissey fans to Our Frank's serious obsession with amassing the largest database of Smiths/Moz tributes and covers, but better late than never, yes? I've been stealing helping myself to his files for years now on my preferred P2P, and I don't see why I should hold back on alerting you to the vastness of his collection. Impressive. And a little scary. But fucking awesome.

Baby, check this out, I've got something to say.

Sorry about the lack of posts, time keeps slipping away from me. I've been planning on posting a handful of relatively popular songs that are covers that no one seems to know are covers, but I got sidetracked.

That idea, however, was partially inspired by They Might Be Giants' version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," which a friend referenced the other day as "the greatest song TMBG ever wrote." Yeah, well, except it was originally a quirky little hit from the '50s and they didn't write it.

Then I started thinking about how much I used to love TMBG, and started some random Googling that led me to a few TMBG-related covers already available on the ol' Internet.

For instance:

Here you can download a reworking of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople" entitled "The Disarmament Song" as sung by Ellen Bernfeld, who was the voice of the Misfits' Pizzazz on Jem and the Holograms.

The downloads section of the Media page over at the celtic/bluegrass/pop-rock band Carbon Leaf's site is full of covers, including a live version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)."

If you scroll down to "Non-Album Tracks" on this page, you can find a scary, off-key version of "Older" by the Snot Patties. There's a Modest Mouse cover there as well.

A band called Very Low Sodium has a pretty good cover of "Destination Moon" on its site.

There was a tribute CD available at one time called We Might Be Giants Too, which I believe began as a downloadable album via TMBG.org and which I don't have. Then there was a rumor that a second was coming out. Don't know if that ever happened, but you can hear one of its potential tracks—"Moving to the Sun" as performed by Father Bingo and the Legion of Decency (as well as a Dead Milkmen cover)—here.

A hip new TMBG tribute CD is hitting the streets soon, and you can hear snippets of a few of the tracks by visiting its My Space page. I'm particularly excited to see that the CD's producer has recorded his own poppy version of my favorite TMBG track, "Narrow My Eyes." And the Hotel Lights are doing another fave, "The End of the Tour." Exciting.

On a weirder tip, I wish I had the money right now to buy steel-drum cover band (who knew?) Apocalypso's album, because I am positively dying to hear their version of "Man, It's So Loud in Here." (You can hear a few of the other non-TMBG covers over at CD Baby.)

So, yeah, that's what I have for you today. Hopefully I'll get a minute tonight to post some actual tracks for you, TMBG-related and otherwise. Hope this tides you over a bit.

We can be like they are. Come on, baby!

I've spent a good part of the weekend making my friend Jovan a multi-disc compilation of "the gayest stuff in Liza's PC"—see here and here—and I just realized I should post some stuff here too. My holiday weekend was the lamest ever. I'm sure there were barbecues and get-togethers and goings on, I just happened not to be invited to any. So, lest you believe me "cool," now you know the truth. I'm a sad, sad soul. And I will die alone. But Blue Oyster Cult knows how to console me and ready me for the end, yes? (Sorry for the lack of umlauts. I'm lazy about my HTML, yo.)

The Beautiful South "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Fey British jazz-pop death.

Clint Ruin and Lydia Lunch "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Punk-staple death.

Apollo 440 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Techno-pop death.

Unto Ashes "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Pretty, ethereal, folk-goth death.

H.I.M. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Hard-rock glam-goth Finnish death.

Andy McCoy and Pelle Miljoona "Kuin Romeo Ja Julia [(Don't Fear) The Reaper]" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
Mainstream Finnish death.

Goo Goo Dolls "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (Blue Oyster Cult cover)
"Grunge" death. (Surprisingly slightly more punk-sounding than the Ruin/Lunch cover.)

Oh, and thanks again for all the Threadless love. By the way, they have a few brand-new geektastic designs up now, if you're interested. The $10 sale ends Sunday.

Other voices, other rooms.

The Live Journal Audiography community is having a covers theme right now. Head over there to find lots of people posting covers, some of which I've posted here previously and many I have not. Be warned, however, that most users in that community use You Send It to host their files, so the extraction can take a while.

Also, thanks to all of you who are still buying stuff at Threadless' $10 sale. My friends who will be getting free shirts as a result thank you.

The only thing I ever really wanted to say was wrong.

Scrawl "Public Image" (P.I.L. cover)
I used to really have a thing for Scrawl (and P.I.L., come to think of it) back in the day.

Killing Heidi "Tomorrow" (Silverchair cover)
Australian band I'd never heard of covers Australian band I wish I'd never heard of.

Tin Tin Out "Here's Where the Story Ends" (Sundays cover)
Not different enough from the original (or good enough to exist). But whatever.

Morgan Fisher as Hybrid Kids as British Standard Unit "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy" (Rod Stewart cover)
Former keyboardist for Mott the Hoople asks some friends to help him create wacky covers and makes up band names to go along with them because we needed a industro-synth version of this so desperately.

Stephan Eicher "Sweet Jane" (Velvet Underground cover)
Most covers of "Sweet Jane" are syrupy and not at all very different from the original—most of them.

That's what I'm paid for.

Themes are great and all, but I prefer random smatterings. (That and I apparently feel like testing the true strength of my bandwidth.) So here goes ...

The Konki Duet "Il Fait Tout Gris (Fade to Grey)" (Visage cover)
Electronic J-Pop with 1960s-era honey-dripping French vocal stylings? Don't mind if I do.

Bruce Willis "Under the Boardwalk" (comp. Resnick/Young)
Help us.

Shivaree "The Fat Lady of Limbourg" (Brian Eno cover)
I've been aware of Shivaree for a while now, but man, did their presence on the Kill Bill Vol. 2 soundtrack give them a real boost or what? Good for them. Any band who covers this track is at least a little okay in my book.

Shiina Ringo "Yer Blues" (Beatles cover)
I want more hard-rocking, guttural Japanese goddesses to cover songs like this.

Manic Street Preachers "We Are All Bourgeois Now" (McCarthy cover)
The band McCarthy was but a blip on my radar during its heyday in the mid to late '80s, but I liked this cover enough to reinvestigate them. Jangly and fun. Check 'em out.

Emilie Simon "I Wanna be Your Dog" (Iggy Pop cover)
I know I've been Iggy-heavy lately, but I suspect you love it.

Ronnie Ong "Buttons and Bows" (comp. Ray Evans)
WFMU says the liner notes of this one refer to Ong as "Singapore's answer to Trini Lopez." Did any one ever ask? Whatever. I'm always down for 1960s Asian fuzz rock.

Sufjan Stevens "The One I Love" (REM cover)
Dear Sufjan: Marry me. Or just meet me for coffee. Or something.

June Tabor "Pharaoh" (Richard Thompson cover)
I'm shocked by how much I like this.

Visage "2525" (Zager and Evans cover)
Before "Fade to Grey" [see above] became their biggest hit, Visage released this cover as their first single. Oh, new wave! If only it would make a comeback...

Donovan's Brain "Smothered in Hugs" (Guided by Voices cover)
This is the worst GBV cover I've ever heard. And that's saying something.

Not lame.

Sheesh. Between Comcast (whose service has been iffy at best lately) and Blogger (whose service seems to have been in and out as well) and power outages during thunderstorms, it's taken me three or four days to make this damned post. If it weren't for the fact that I was able to spend the last few days watching Freaks and Geeks DVDs, I'd have gone postal.

Aaaaaanyhow ... local reader/photographer/general cute geeky type Peter sent me these tracks from a new Cars tribute—click here to hear sample MP3s, read band descriptions and buy the disc—he helped wrangle. Nice. Many of Not Lame's cover comps (as well as it's bubblegum, psych and powerpop comps) are pretty worthwhile. I've long been a fan of Right to Chews and the like. And the 1984 Cars cocnert was the first concert I actually chose to go to.

Damone "Just What I Needed" (The Cars cover)

The Argument "Hello Again" (The Cars cover)

Bleu "You Might Think" (The Cars cover)

Not Cars-related: Parents, kids at heart and furries might be interested in checking out the Wormseye video for the Kidz Bop version of "Since U Been Gone" found here. (Thanks, Don!)

Seis de Mayo*

The Beat Boys "O Meu Tamborim (My Green Tambourine)" (Lemon Pipers cover in Portuguese)
Love it! This is from one of the Brazilian Nuggets comps, which are, for the most part, completely awesome.

Capital Inicial "O Passageiro (The Passenger)" (Iggy Pop cover in Portuguese)
If this were an American band covering this in English, I'd probably find it predictably "alternative." But Brazilian rockers are cuter, so this is much better.

Roberta Miranda "A Mulher Em Mim " (Shania Twain cover in Portuguese)
Sigh. Nothing good can come from the mediocre covering the mediocre. Even in a foreign tongue.

Rebekah Del Rio "Llorando (Crying)" (Roy Orbison cover in Spanish, from Mulholland Drive)
Even though I've read what it was all supposed to mean, I still don't really get it.

Los Rockin' Rebeldes "Danny Boy" (Traditional song in Spanish—people are still debating its original composer)
This is freaky, It starts off with a Mexican Scott Walker/Rufus Wainwright vibe and jumps into garage psych. Que sorpresa!

Los Locos del Ritmo "Hey Joe" (Jimi Hendrix cover in Spanish)
This has more a sense of immediacy to me than the original. Or maybe I've just had too much tequila. (This track as well as the one above are from Mexican Rock and Roll Psych-Out, which rules.)

Paralisis Permanente "Quiero Ser Tu Perro (I Want to be Your Dog)" (Iggy Pop cover in Spanish)
Apparently Latin American and/or Spanish grupos love Iggy. And who can blame them?

Braun (and the Mob) "Da Flash an da Funk (Flashlight)" (Parliament cover in Spanish)
Yay for glitchy funk from Germany sung in Spanish!

Selena "Fotos Y Recuerdos (Back on the Chain Gang)" (Pretenders cover in Spanish)
Ah, fair Jennifer Lopez Selena! The Spanish lyrics of this song replace the "Chain Gang" idiom with "photos and memories," thus changing the entire tone of the song—a fate I'm sure has befallen many today's selections. Pretty annoying. Had I a chance to see her perform live before her terrible fate, I'd have spent the duration of this song staring at her midriff.

Los Abandoned "Como la Flor" (Selena cover)
Speaking of Selena, she is not above reproach! Chilean/Los Angelean post-punkers rework one of her big hits (the sole track today that was originally performed in Spanish) so you can mosh to it. Or do whatever dance people at Blink-182 concerts do.

*All songs featured today are not solely by Mexican performers, but there are a couple.

I miss you like crazy.

Hey, kids, sorry about the dearth of MP3s this week, I've been a bit queasy the past few days and my priorities shifted. I'll post some soon, I promise. To tide you over until then, you might want to scroll through some of the comments people have left in my past few entries. There you should find a handful of links to strange sites sharing covers.

I never said I wasn't gonna tell nobody.

Oh my god. New Copy, Right? reader Brad Walsh (thanks, ultragrrrl for linking me so he could find me!) has made me ecstatic by letting me in on his electro covers. That anyone would cover Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts" in the first place makes me giddy. That it's actually cool makes it even better. (Does anyone remember Stacey's stint as Cinnamon of The Facts of Life? That was the shit.) And though Crystal Waters' "100% Pure Love" is one of my most hated songs (still not as much as the homeless song), his cover is amusingly refreshing. Check out those covers as well as a few more on his music page. And, while you're there, why not try some remixes and originals too?

I'll probably post some new tracks by Tuesday night.

I know just what it takes to make a pro blush.

Mini Pops "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes cover)
Decades before Kidz Bop came along and tried to convince us that kids responded better to today's pop hits when an untalented non-famous adult sang it with a group of kids cheering in the background, there was a group of actual British kids rerecording hits of their era. Apparently the group's producers (go K-tel!) thought getting 8-year-olds to seductively sing songs about a manipulative woman who fucks guys on the floor of her apartment was an awesome idea. And they were so wrong they were almost right. Seriously, if has anyone out there has Mini Pops LPs (or 8-tracks!) and can convert them to MP3s and send them to me, I'd ... well, I don't know what I would do. But I'd be ecstatic. (Thanks, Mark, for this one!)

Gwyneth Paltrow "Bette Davis Eyes" (Kim Carnes cover, from Duets)
And this version is even more disturbing!

Also—not related to kids (or celebrities) singing adult themed-songs but related to covers in general—Steve over at Domino Rally has the Bad Plus doing Iron Man, y'all.

I have people all over the world working for me for free!

Reader Tarek just alerted me that local emo types Canasta have a handful of covers, live and otherwise, available on their audio page—including a pretty little cover of one of my favorite '80s one-hit wonders, Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)." (Actually, I quite enjoyed his "World of Lust and Crime" as well, but no one I know seems to remember that.)

Reader Skott sent a track my way that's kinda interesting (especially if you, like me, are a fan of the Vocoder): David Torn's sons Elijah and Cody covering Alicia Keys' "Falling."

And, you're not going to believe this one, but a record label rep actually sent me something covers-related! Usually I get the standard "Hi, my name's Schmo and I'm a big fan of your site. Please check out [insert sucky band who has no covers available] and consider promoting them for me" crap that I suspect all MP3 bloggers get. But Sean from Redder Records let me in on a few new Kind of Like Spitting (whose covers I quite often enjoy, even!) covers available here. Wonders never cease!

They never wanted to kill; they are not naturally evil ... such things they do just to make themselves more attractive to you. Have they failed?

Alison Moyet "There are Worse Things I Could Do" (from Grease)
I can think of no blue-eyed soul songstress I'd rather hear cover this bad-girls-have-hearts-too classic.

Dogstar "Superstar" (Carpenters cover)
Ah, Keanu. You know it's bad when you're playing bass for a band that probably could've been as successful as Matchbox 20 if only they had half an ounce of charisma. Or a quarter ounce of eyeliner.

J. Church "Last of the Famous international Playboys" (Morrissey cover)
I don't care for this punk cover, but I am glad to see bands covering my favorite Morrissey song.

Rabbit in the Moon "Waiting for the Night" (Depeche Mode cover)
It's a cheesy thing to admit, but I'll have you know that Depeche Mode's Violator was the soundtrack to nearly all of my masturbation from the end of my senior year of high school through to the beginning of my freshman year of college. What a dork I was. [Ponders a blog dedicated to teenage alt.Liza's masturbation songs ... thinks better of it.] This version from Florida's most popular [only?] trancesters is pretty good for what it is. Especially if you've just taken two Vicodin and have a lot of candles burning.

Sexy Sadie "Moonage Daydream" (David Bowie cover)
Speaking of sex:

Dear hot Spanish boys,

You may serenade me with David Bowie anytime. Then we will dance on the beach and have a menage a trois. Or tres. Or quatro. Or cinco. Or whatever. I'm perpetually ready and willing to be tu mama tambien. [Pardon the lack of accent marks. I'm too lazy to look up the proper HTML.]

Love, Liza

Toonces "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" (Cyndi Lauper cover)
I can't find any info online about Toonces. Are they Japanese? German? Finnish? Or simply the product of a Cover Fight? Anyone?

I'll never understand why so many people prefer to be catty when it's just as easy to be nice.

So, someone is calling me out in another blog's comments because, supposedly, the files I'm sharing have viruses. This, of course, is news to me. Hell, I didn't even know it was possible for MP3s to have viruses in them. Does this mean I'm stupid? Perhaps. But I scan my computer (including the folders with MP3s in them) for viruses on a regular basis with regularly updated anti-virus software and I've yet to have anything alert me to viruses. So, if you can shed some light on how this all works by letting me know directly or by giving me some solutions to remedy any perceived problems so that I might fix them, that would be most appreciated. Or maybe you could tell me what proof you have that my files have viruses or tell me which files they are. Or, if you prefer, you can choose the less friendly, totally prickish route and just go badmouthing me elsewhere for something I was completely unaware of.

So, yeah. I would be grateful for any helpful input on this matter.

Let me walk down the highway with my brother in peace.

Hey, kids. A random insomnia-inspired Googling of an old friend—who was once in my best pal Ryan's band back in the day in Bloomington, Indiana—led me to her current band's website, where you can download a cover of her singing Bob Dylan's "Let Me Die in My Footsteps." I knew she was in Chicago since I ran into her a year or so ago at a sushi bar, but haven't made it out to see her band yet. It's now on my to-do list. So, yeah, check it out. Ami has a fucking fantastic voice.

And, while we're talking about my old musical pals from my days in Bloomington and their cover songs, PJ from Sardina—a band I've talked about at length in past entries—has a slew of covers available for download here. (A selection which includes the "Me and My Arrow" cover I once posted last year.)

Oh, and as for friends of the online variety, it's Joy Division cover season over at Spoilt Victorian Child.

It's the best I can do.

It's not my intention, really, to keep up with the one-band megasong entries, but I've had Abba in my head the past few days and, seriously, Abba has to be one of the top three most-covered acts of all time and it's hard to narrow it down to one or two tracks. (Plus, I've been so busy the past few weeks, I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like in general.) I could start an Abba cover site and post eight songs a day for a year and there'd still be millions more. Metal, country, new age, Broadway, teen pop, rockabilly, goth, indie acts? They all cover Abba.

Lush "Hey Hey Helen" (Abba cover)
One of my favorite Abba covers by far. I miss Lush.

A*Teens "Our Last Summer" (Abba cover)
The original version of this song was the one stuck in my head earlier this week. As a child in the late '70s, I wore my Abba albums out and quickly tired of the bigger hits. This song was my first introduction to the pronunciation of Parisian landmarks and may well have been what prompted me to study French instead of German or Spanish once I hit middle school. This song is super-sappy, hence its appeal to an 8-year-old. But, even at 8, the line "and now you're working in a bank/ the family man, the football fan/ and your name is Harry" perplexed me. Had he changed his name since that summer in Paris? I chalked it up to English not being Abba's first language. Aaaanyhow, this song is more obscure than most Abba songs covered, so of course it would be done by one of the most perplexing Abba tribute acts. It seems these young Swedes wanted to experience the same level of fame as their elder countrymen and chose to do so by paying homage to Abba by totally ripping them off. And to think I missed the opportunity of posting this on March 7, which—according to various fan sites— was "International Day of A*Teens World-Wide"!

Mad Heads "Money, Money, Money" (Abba cover)
Ukranian psychobilly, eh? Okay.

Yngwie Malmsteen "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" (Abba cover)
Aaah, Yngwie! Always rousing us with his lick-filled covers!

Therion "Summernight City" (Abba cover)
Another Swedish band paying homage to their forefathers via gothy Ozzy-influenced death metal.

Gheorghe Zamfir and Dana Dragomir "Chiquitita" (Abba cover)
It's spring in Chicago and you know what that means: Any day now you can expect to hear pan flute wafting up the city streets into your office from the arts and crafts tent fair below. But Zamfir, it ain't. Pan flute at Chicago street fairs is usually South American. This is pan flute from my Romanian brethren. (Although Dana, the world's first female professional pan flautist, currently resides in Abba's Sweden.) Bow before Zamfir, master of the pan flute!

Sensitive New Age Cowpersons "Dancing Queen" (Abba cover)
The scariest four-word combination in the world: Australian bluegrass comic musicians.

Evan Dando "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (Abba cover)
I've made lots of fun of Evan Dando in my day. I'm guessing this is because everyone I've met who looks like him has been either an asshole or a total freak (or both) and because everyone I've ever met who lists the Lemonheads as a favorite act has been either an asshole or a total freak (or both). But that's not really Evan's fault. Is it?

He hit me, but I knew he loved me.

Twice now I've begun writing my newest post, only to have the following message pop up as I'm attempting to save the drafts:

"The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, support@blogger.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error."

Um. Blogger has a lot of nerve trying to blame me.

Let them know we tried.

You know, so far I think the best Google search term with the potential to lead people to my site is "Blake Babies slash." Also, I appreciate all the cover suggestions I've been receiving lately, but—at the risk of approaching the height of snobbery—keep in mind whom you're dealing with. You have to search long and hard to find covers I don't already have or know about. I mean, really, I talked about Dokaka's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" almost a year ago. It's the covers equivalent of commenting to Matthew Perpetua and trying to turn him onto a "new" acts like LCD Soundsystem or the Bloc Party. /end good-natured tongue-in-cheekiness

Yeah. I'll probably start posting again on a more regular basis after the weekend. I just had insomnia so I thought I'd check in.

Aw, what the hell, here's something with which to horrify yourselves:

Mark Oh "When the Children Cry" (White Lion cover)
See, Darwin? Those techno-trance freaks will co-opt anything.

Load up on guns and bring your friends.

A week ago today marked the 11th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide*. (Or murder, if you're one of those irrational freaks in the "Courtney killed him" camp.) Yeah. I don't really care—since depsite liking them I was always shocked at how immensely successful they became and because it annoys me when people with unlimited financial resources are somehow incapable of finding help—but here are a slew of Nirvana covers anyhow. Man, there sure are a lot of Nirvana covers. It was difficult to narrow it down to these lucky 13. (I figure I might as well celebrate my webspace by testing it with as many downloads as possible!)

*And, sadly, this prediction appears not to have come true.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit"

The Bad Plus

Nonex

Rumal Noorkuu

The Scala Choir

"Come As You Are"

Dani Siciliano

Pink Freud

"All Apologies"

Herbie Hancock

Sinead O'Connor

"Verse Chorus Verse"

Scout Niblett

"Breed"

Steve Earle

"On a Plain"

Rogue Wave

"Rape Me"

Richard Cheese

"Heart-Shaped Box"

Evanescence

Patience, my pretties.

Well, brainiac that I am, I figured out how to be able post more stuff. Why not use the same super deal I used previously for my domain/webspace to create another domain/webspace? Yeah, I'm quick. So, as soon as the 12- to 48-hour span of time it takes for the Internet to recognize the domain passes, those Nirvana covers (and others, no doubt) shall surface.

I always suspected there would be drawbacks to being popular.

So, it looks as if I've exceeded (or am close to exceeding) my host's allowed transfers for the month. This would be fine if said host would disallow transfers once I hit the maximum, but instead said host will allow people to keep downloading and simply charge me money I can't afford in order that they may do so. For obvious reasons, that doesn't sit well with me and I've changed the settings so this won't happen in the future. But, for now, I've removed all mp3s from my host's server and the links below that look active actually aren't. Don't worry, the Nirvana stuff I posted earlier will return in a week or so. I guess I got a little overzealous and didn't realize how many people actually read my various sites. The good with the bad, you know?

Almost immediately, I felt sorry.

Man, it's already Wednesday? I keep waiting for a moment to create a post chock-full of witty insights, and I can't find it. So now it's on you.

2 Play feat. Juxci D "Careless Whisper" (Wham! cover)

Alkaline Trio "Metro" (Berlin cover)

Operation Cliff Clavin "Fuck and Run" (Liz Phair cover)

Delerium "Justify My Love" (Madonna cover)

Trespassers William "Vapour Trail" (Ride cover)

The April fools.

This is all a terrible joke. None of these are real.

Don Johnson "Tell it Like It Is" (Davis/Diamond)

Andy Gibb and Victoria Principal "All I Have to Do is Dream" (Everly Brothers cover)

Claudine Longet "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" (Leonard Cohen cover)

Dave Stewart (not the one from the Eurythmics) and Barbara Gaskin "It's My Party" (Lesley Gore cover)

Barry Williams (aka Greg Brady, aka Johnny Bravo) "We Are the Champions" (Queen cover)

The Motels "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" (Crystals cover)

Tiny Tim w/Brave Combo "Hey Jude" (Beatles cover)

I feel so unsteady, oh, Tuscadero, I miss you already.

Downloadable tribute to Teenbeat Records.
Thanks, Stephen.

I am the eye in the sky.

I don't get to alert you often enough when it happens, but Womenfolk has a new "Cover Girls" entry up now.

Barely related: How on earth did I survive before Down Them All? And where on earth will I find the time to actually take in all this music? MP3 bloggers are taking over the world!!!

Have you waited so long for your love vibration?

Then, by all means, let Jennifer Love Hewitt help you out.

Funny, this doesn't make me want to dance or masturbate. Maybe shove pencils in my ears though.
Thanks, Louis.

Oh, how I rock in Keds and tube socks.

Superchunk "Beat My Guest" (Adam and the Ants cover)
Mac McCaughan wouldn't even have to pay me to dominate him. I think he's sexy and I love Adam Ant. I have no idea why I'd have waited this long to post this.

All Saints "Under the Bridge" (Red Hot Chili Peppers cover)
I don't even like Red Hot Chili Peppers and still I'm horrified by this massacre.

The Scala Choir "She Hates Me" (Puddle of Mudd cover)
Everyone has posted Scala's "I Touch Myself." I think I might've back when I first started this blog. (Which was more than a year ago, I can't believe it!) Anyhow, I like this cover better. I dislike Puddle of Mudd immensely, but I like hearing choirs sing the word fuck and variations thereof.

Clutch "Money" (Pink Floyd cover)
Clutch is my friend Eric's favorite band. This isn't exactly my kind of music, but having seen his Clutch sweatshirt many times, I can say that I like their logo. And, actually, I think this cover is kinda sexy. Yes. I said sexy. I like burly, tough-sounding guys.

Mr. Big "Wild World" (Cat Stevens cover)
Never in a million years would I have imagined I'd post Mr. Big covering something and that it wouldn't be the worst song of the lot. Say what you will, but those boys can harmonize. All Saints, you'd do well to follow their lead.

Pastel Vespa "Teenage Dirtbag" (Wheatus cover)

Wheatus "A Little Respect" (Erasure cover)
I was only vaguely aware of Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag" during its heyday and likely wrote it off as innocuous whiny pop drivel. Pastel Vespa's version is so hot it almost makes me like the original. And then I hear Wheatus' rendition of "A Little Respect" and I'm back at one.

Les Schtroumpfs (which are French—and/or French-Canadian—Smurfs) "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (um, sort of)" (Solomon Burke, uh, cover)
God help us. "Schtroumpfez le blues, blues, blues/Avec nous, nous, nous"? Uh. D'accord.

How big a star do you have to be before you start a side project?

Oh yeeeah!

Atom feed.

You think I'd leave your side, baby? You know me better than that.

Groove Coverage "The Last Unicorn" (America cover)
Oh, man. A few months ago, I saw the VHS of The Last Unicorn on my good pal Nate's shelf, and asked if I could borrow it. I remember seeing it on cable all the time as a kid, but couldn't remember any real specifics. I suspected it would all come back to me as I watched, and I was right. Before I popped it in, I had completely forgotten about the America-penned soundtrack, but once it was on, I was singing along to the cheese. Also while watching and singing along, I innately knew that somewhere there must be a horrific cover of the title song, and I suspected it would be in the techno-trance vein. Once again, I was right.

Nate says: "This is a total rave song created so twentysomethings on X can hear it while they're dancing and think, 'Oh, yeeeeah! I remember this!' and think that they're somehow interconnected with the cosmos."

Mary Hopkin "Happiness Runs (which itself is a reworking of The Pebble and the Man)" (Donovan cover)
I'm always torn when I hear a song I like in a TV commercial. Should I be horrified that "my" song is being used to sell airline tickets or should I be happy to reminded of its existence in the first place? With this Donovan track, I'd say the latter. And Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin's Paul McCartney-produced cover is pretty and worthwhile, in my opinion.

Stiv. Bators "It's Cold Outside" (The Choir cover)
The Choir's "It's Cold Outside" is my favorite track in the Nuggets catalog. And this was Dead Boys' frontman Stiv Bators' first solo single. Or so I read somewhere. It's pretty good.

Bettie Serveert "Lover, I Don't Have to Love" (Bright Eyes cover)
Someone asked for this in a comment the other day, and though I usually don't take requests, I like Bettie Serveert a lot and figured, "What the heck." I like this more than the original, but that's easily explained as I'm not a huge emo fan.

Beachwood Sparks "By Your Side" (Sade cover)
I was never a huge Sade fan, but there was always something kind of haunting and mesmerizing about this track to me. This version is even more up my alley.

Cash Money Millionaires "Feelin' On Yo' Booty (Remix)" (R. Kelly cover)
Wow. You know you've got a jam on your hands when people want to cover a remix of one of your songs. Seriously, this is not for everyone. Kelly's remix is one of my biggest guilty pleasures due to its sheer wrongness, and the Cash Money Millionaires version is somehow even shadier.

They don't love you like I love you.

Hey, kids, Ben put up a couple of covers yesterday, if you're interested.

Similarly, Dylan has an alternate version of The Streets' "Fit But You Know It, a song I love, with the Futureheads as the backing band.

I wish I could post links to every MP3 blog that's posting covers on a given day, but considering the sheer numbers of MP3 blogs out there and most bloggers' predilection toward covers, that's more of an undertaking for a someone without a job and/or life. But I try from time to time.

I'll probably post some tracks later tonight (or from work tomorrow since it'll probably be slow what with all the art students on Spring Break and all).

Also: All you cool kids who are getting a chance to see The Go! Team completely suck and I hate you. Not really, of course.

Aw, hells no!

I don't usually make posts of this nature, nor do I have to because most of you readers leave friendly comments, but today I'm in a mood, so get ready:

If you're going to be an asshole in your comments to me and try to make me look like an idiot, you better be fucking sure you've got your facts straight. So, Mr. or Ms. "Some Music Snob" who thought you were schooling me on "Kiss Me Deadly," let me let you in on a little secret: You're wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!!!

But, while we're on the topic, seriously, people, as knowledgeable as I like to believe I am, I am not a rock historian. I'm a chick (who doesn't work in a music-related field) who happens to have an MP3 blog and who also happens to be human. I make mistakes sometimes, and those of you who frequently read my site know that I freely admit when I've goofed and make edits as necessary. So there's no need to be a giant prick to me—especially if you're too lazy or stupid to do any sort of fact checking to make sure you know what in the hell you're talking about first.

It ain't the way that you shake me.

Eileen "Ces Bottes sont Faites pour Marcher (These Boots are Made for Walking)" (French Nancy Sinatra cover)
This sounds exactly as you would imagine it might: It's a perfect ye-ye girl version, nearly identical to the original except in French. Delightful.

The Futureheads "The Hounds of Love" (Kate Bush cover)
This far surpasses all of the other covers of this song I've heard. Granted, I'm a sucker for this post-punk/new-wave renaissance we've been in the past year or two, but even if you're not, you have to be pretty impressed by how perfectly timed the "woah ohs" are. Also, you can check out the video here.

Mansfield feat. Yukari Fresh "The New Pollution" (Beck cover)
One of my favorite covers I ever posted here was Low IQ 01 & Yukari Fresh's version of "Anarchy in the UK," so I was overjoyed to stumble on another cover involving Yukari Fresh. Of course, unlike "Anarchy," Beck's original "New Pollution" is already a little pastiche of bossa and samba, so it's not much of a stretch to run with that, but it's a fun reworking nonetheless.

Johnny Socko "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" (Night Ranger cover)
We all have our local guilty pleasure bar bands when we're in college, yes? Well, Johnny Socko was mine. I always felt I shouldn't have liked them, but I just couldn't help myself. Of course, this was in the early '90s just before the pseudo-ska wave really hit big. And Johnny Socko was a fun pseudo-ska band full of fun guys who did a lot of covers, as well as quirky originals. The covers I remember them doing regularly back in the day were classics such as Lou Rawls' "You'll Never Find" and the Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." They used to have prizes for audience members who danced the most, and I won on several occasions, which seems completely foreign to me now. Once I won an awesome jackpot prize that included a giant Christmas stocking full of tacky Coors Light promo junk (wall clocks, foam things to keep your beers cold, cushions for sporting event seats, etc.) and, more importantly, a free year pass to the Bluebird, a bar at which Socko frequently played. (Seriously, there is no better present to a poor gal who just turned 21 than a free pass to one of the most prominent bars in town.) I had a good rapport with the lead singer at the time, Mike Wiltrout (pictured here), and openly lusted after Charlie the trombonist. (Where are you, my love???) Another prize-winning night involved me getting on stage and Mike daring me to lather up my face and shave it with a razor they happened to have handy for some reason. Of course, I complied. And, for a while there, the band included the phenomenal bass playing of Brent Olds (later of Poi Dog Pondering and Wanamaker), who was amazing to watch. They were super-nice people.

All of that said ... while I'm sure they're still nice guys, the Johnny Socko you hear here is not the Socko of my youth. Yeah, a few of the members are original, but as far as I can tell they have nowhere near the talent or charisma as the Socko cast of yore. This is your standard case of a college band turning itself, like the Mike & Joes and Mr. Blottos before them, into a frat-bar franchise and not realizing when to call it quits. So, you've been warned. (Know, however, that this track is far better than the original songs modern-day Socko churns out.) This track comes from Metalliska, a "ska" tribute to metal bands (is Night Ranger metal?) that had a few decent tracks on it. Like it or leave it. I just wanted to reminisce a bit.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup.

My favorite local cable access music video showcase, Ken Mottet's The Otherside, just showed the video for my gay boyfriend Rufus Wainwright's version of the Beatles' "Across the Universe," which was a byproduct of the horrible movie I Am Sam and which I'd not seen previously. (That was a long sentence!) Aaaaaaaaanyway, it's equally cool (Rufus is sexy and suspended looks as if he's suspended in mid-air) and lame (it "stars" that creepy Village of the Damned-looking Dakota Fanning and uses a variation on that once-cool/now-cheesy Schindler's Listian red-against-a-B&W-backdrop effect—not to mention it's use of the classic '80s "I know! There are paintings on easels in that room, let's frame part of the video inside them!" brilliance). Heh. Another super-long sentence. Aaaaaaaaaanyhow, you can see it for yourselves right here.

It's strange what desire will make foolish people do.

Holly Beth Vincent* "Chapel of Love" (comp. Barry/Greenwich/Spector)
Holly Beth Vincent (and the Italians, in some cases) had a handful of cover songs back in the day. Hell, I just saw her version of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" on VH1 Classics the other day and completely freaked out with middle-school flashbacks. New-wave covers of '60s hits make me happy.

*This track comes from an album titled Holly & the Italians, but is actually Vincent's solo project she was forced into by her Virgin contract.

Coheed and Cambria "Sister Christian" (Night Ranger cover)
Not surprising to see a band who regularly borrows from the rock stylings of 1980s supergroups (could this guy sound more like Geddy Lee?) covering this track. It is surprising, however, that I like it so much.

Pipilotti Rist "Wicked Game" (Chris Isaak cover)
Regular Copy, Right? reader Nicky sent this my way the other day, and I'm quite pleased. I had no idea that Swiss media artist Pipilotti Rist recorded any songs, let alone covers. Apparently she uses this as a backing track in one of her oceanic video installations, which I'm now dying to see. Obviously influenced by the sound recordings of Yoko Ono, Rist's "Wicked Game" is perfect to me considering how often I myself have wanted to start screaming in pain by the time this song gets to the end.

Petra Haden "Heinz Baked Beans" (The Who cover)

Petra Haden "I Can See for Miles" (The Who cover)
I like Petra Haden. Really. And I think it's, um, interesting that she covered the entire The Who Sell Out album acappella. Really. I'm just not certain it's something I'd want to listen to more than once.

I need all the world to confirm that I ain't lonely.

Placebo "Johnny and Mary" (Robert Palmer cover)

The Notwist "Johnny and Mary" (Robert Palmer cover)
I was vaguely aware of the original (which you can get on this page of one of my favorite MP3 blogs ever) "Johnny and Mary" as a child, but was shocked to learn later in life (post-"Addicted to Love," of course) that it was by Robert Palmer. I remembered Palmer in that "Clues" video, and I found him smarmy as hell. Anyhow, this song helps me understand why John Taylor liked him. I couldn't decide which of these covers to post (there are a lot more where these came from, by the way), so I went for both. Placebo's is your standard head-on, driving, whiny Placebo cover (not that there's anything wrong with that!) while the Notwist's builds from some soft strange little Parisian-sounding organ-grinder dirge into an indie powerpop speed metal trip that ends with a bizarre spoken-word answering machine message. Yes, you read right.

More stuff coming very soon.

Dear Stereogum:

Way to make me totally cum all over myself!

Was that too blue? Whatever. I reserve every right to fantasize that Ted Leo is seranading this to me while jumping up and down my bed in T-shirts, armbands and scarves from Hot Topic. Don't judge!

It was worth it just to learn some sleight of hand.

The Kidz Bop Kids "Float On" (Modest Mouse cover)
I'm usually not one for bandwagon jumping, but my pal Eric alerted me to the existence of this horrifying track—of which he learned via Ultragrrrl—and I just couldn't resist. I've long been holding off on posting a myriad of Kidz Bop massacres, but this track so perfectly encapsulates how wrong they are, I had to post it immediately.

People think I'm insane because I am frowning all the time.

These are songs I uploaded a while back for use on other sites I frequent, but I figure I might as well post them here since they're already uploaded and whatnot and I've been otherwise slacking the past few days.

Inspiral Carpets "Paranoid" (Black Sabbath cover)
I uploaded this the other day to prove to a LiveJournal friend that she is indeed wrong for loving Inspiral Carpets. Heh. Just kidding ... sort of. You should know that any criticizing I do comes from a place of love, really. Especially considering I still have (and like!!!) the "This Is How It Feels" Maxi CD.

Behl "Don't You Forget About Me" (Simple Minds cover)
Yeah, at first I didn't want to post this here because I've already posted so many John Hughes-related twee covers, but one more couldn't hurt I suppose.

I got something to put in you.

Peaches "Gay Bar" (Electric Six cover)
It's probably passé, but I loves me some Peaches.

Sebadoh "Cold as Ice" (Foreigner cover)
I'm very attracted to men who look like Lou Barlow, but not so much to Barlow himself. What's up with that?

Astrud Gilberto "Beginnings" (Chicago cover)
I'm currently experiencing a Chicago renaissance. I'm not sure why.

Cagney and Lacee (aka Dean Wareham and Claudia Silver) "Lovin' You" (Minnie Riperton cover)
Dean Wareham loves the covers, eh? Before he paired up with Jem (Britta Phillips) for 2003's L'Avventura, he worked with his then-wife to release an EP of somber little covers, Six Feet of Chain, under the Cagney and Lacee moniker. This track always made me happy.

Randy "Kiss Me Deadly" (Lita Ford cover)
This Swedish "punk" version is only worthwhile (in a humorous way) in the first few lines, in which you'll hear some iffy verb tenses and the word job pronounced as yob, which amuses me far more than it should.

Shaun Cassidy "Rebel Rebel" (David Bowie cover)
Oh, Shaun ... how I loved him back in the day. I had Shaun Cassidy pillow cases and a poster of him in that shiny white satin jacket with eyes that followed me wherever in my room I stood. To this day, I still dream of covering "That's Rock N Roll." But his Rundgren/Utopia-produced mostly-cover album that came out far past his heyday (in an attempt to reinvent him for the 1980s, I believe) is scary bad.

Tell your daddy and your mama too.

The first various artist all-cover CD I ever purchased was Rubaiyat: Elektra's 40th Anniversary, which was a collection of Elektra artists covering songs by Elektra artists I picked up my freshman year of college, 1990. It's been out of print a while now, but here are a few of the tracks that piqued my interest enough to initially shell out the dough for a double disc of songs I'd never heard before. [Remember when we had to buy albums without having heard them first? If not, I envy your youth!] I think I might've posted one or two of these back in the day before anyone even read this thing, but I can't remember and don't feel like hunting the archives. Note to self: Get working on creating a list so you can remember what was posted when!

The Cure "Hello, I Love You" (The Doors cover)

The Cure "Hello, I Love You (A Slight Return)" (sort of a The Doors cover)

The Kronos Quartet "Marquee Moon" (Television cover)

The Sugarcubes "Motorcycle Mama" (Sailcat cover)

The Pixies "Born in Chicago" (Paul Butterfield Blues Band cover)

The Might Be Giants "One More Parade" (Phil Ochs cover)

The blackness would hit me, and the void would be calling.

Alvin & the Chipmunks feat. the Chipettes "Time Warp" (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show)
Kill me now.

In a similarly odd/obnoxious vein, if you haven't seen the video for the Christian reworking of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" yet, you really should.

You know what I n-n-n-need. Or maybe you don't.

The Gories "Gimme Some Money" (Spinal Tap cover)
Garage-y and perfect.

London After Midnight "Sally's Song" (from Tim Burton's A Night Before Christmas)
SoCal industrial/goth band that looks like Doctor and the Medics covers a track from the standard Hot Topic afficionado's favorite musical. Predictable, to be sure, but it really could have been so much worse.

Okkervil River "Unravel" (Bjork cover)
I've been a little slow on the uptake with a lot of the Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguar bands (except for those my best friend's brother is in, of course), so I was pleasantly surprised by this pretty live cover.

Johnette Napolitano and Danny Lohner "The Scientist" (Coldplay cover)
What is up with me? I really do not like Coldplay at all, but I love covers people do of their songs. Maybe I just hate Chris Martin's wussy demeanor or something. Johnette badasses this track up a bit and makes it more than bearable. And it's from the Wicker Park soundtrack of all godforsaken places. I swear, a movie doesn't even have to be good nowadays to be rife with indieriffic covers.

Hear the ringing of the telephone. No! No!

As you might imagine, I'm quite bogged down with phone calls since Paris' Sidekick was hacked. And still I've found the time to post some Joe Jackson covers. (Thanks to reader Allan for the hookup on some affordable webspace. Now let's see how it works.) Sometimes, I pretend it's 1982 and I'm getting all coked up for a night on the town, listening to Look Sharp! as I tease my hair.

Fantastic Plastic Machine "Steppin' Out" (Joe Jackson cover)
Japanese club bossa-lounge version. Very smooth.

Da Vinci's Notebook "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" (Joe Jackson cover)
Acappella groups give me the heebie-jeebies.

Mandy Moore "Breaking Us in Two" (Joe Jackson cover)
I have to admit I like Mandy Moore. Her music? Not so much. But I like that her all-cover album contained songs you'd never expect someone her age to revisit (or visit for the first time, more likely).

Anthrax "Got the Time" (Joe Jackson cover)
This version reminds me of my freshman year of college. And I like it anyway!

Also, Skipping Discs Records released an all-gal (well, all-gal-front-person, anyhow) Jackson tribute last year. You can hear snippets of the covered songs here.

The honesty's too much.

As couple of things first:

I wish I could post more stuff and more often and I keep having fantasies that one day I'll be able to afford a domain and lots of webspace and it just isn't happening. So, my apologies for the infrequency of my posts.

I don't want anyone to be offended, but I'm not really into taking requests. If you think I might have a cover you've been looking for, feel free to e-mail me (bigfatprettyface AT yahoo DOT com) and I can try to send it if I have it. Similarly, I'm always open to receiving covers from readers, so send 'em my way if you so desire—I might play it, I might not, but either way I'm interested to know what's out there. So yeah, my posts are based on random things I feel like posting, and I don't plan to change that any time soon.

Likewise, if you're looking for a track I've posted in the past, I will not repost it. Please don't comment asking me to. (Most of you who ask this in the Comments don't give me your e-mail addresses or specify which track you want, so I can't get them to you.) If there's something I have and you want, just drop me a line (bigfatprettyface AT yahoo DOT com) and I'll do my best to send it to you.

Now, let's commence to jiggling!

Queen of Japan "I Love Rock & Roll" (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts cover)
Electroclashtastic! Queen of Japan is my new temporary favorite band that happens to have an all-cover album. [Headrush is its name.] Head over here (as well as one track below) for a few other QOJ covers in Real Media (and a few in MP3) format. Don't you just love a band whose English bio page reads:


"After many tours of hard sexual energy and costume change the queen of japan became known well across country and town never giving in to a life of modest no glamour."

Queen of Japan "Bobby Brown Goes Down" (Frank Zappa cover)
This may or nay not be a too controversial type of song to post. When it comes to the original, I never could quite understand how much of this song is satire and how much of it is pure misogyny and homophobia. Then again, I posted a song about pedophilia in the last post, so I suppose the line has already been crossed. I'm not a huge Zappa fan, but my dad tells a great story about having front-row seats to a Zappa show at Indiana University and tripping so hard before hand that he and his friends could barely navigate the two blocks they needed to walk to the auditorium. Then, at the show, he made eye-contact with Frank and thought hallucinated an entire conversation with him or something like that. (My dad tells me he was at both of the shows Zappa played, one in 1972 and one in 1981; he was higher at the latter.) Um, yeah. My dad was a bad-ass. Aaaaanyhoooo—this is an interesting choice for an electro dance band to cover.

Si*Sé "Just Like Heaven" (Cure cover)
Part English, part Spanish, part Latin, part clubby. I bet they get a lot of play in Putumayo shops. [If Putumayo shops play any discs that aren't on the Putumayo label, that is.]

Rimini Project "Sometimes When We Touch" (Dan Hill cover)
Ha! Often my choices on which of my tens of thousands of covers to share are based on the funniest thing to hit my shuffle play that day. Welcome to today's selection! I cracked up as soon as I heard the "deep" intro. [Those of you who won't be able to stomach the bulk of this crap dancepop track, he speaks at the end as well.] Eh, what do you expect from a band whose site looks more like a fashion spread featuring the most vapid models and which declares them "an european band"? Whatever. The song sucks, but it told me a great "story."

Sunshine Day "I'd Like to be You for a Day" (theme to the original Freaky Friday)
I love that someone covered this! Don't even get me started on my age-old girl crush on '70s, Disney-era Jodie Foster. Damn, I still don't know if I wanted to be her or to date her. She was so tough.

I know perfectly well I'm not where I should be.

Ugh. I've been trying for days to post these, but haven't found the time to say what I want to about each. So I'll just let you guess. You know me pretty well by now.

M. Ward "You Still Believe in Me" (Beach Boys cover)

Kylie Minogue & Nick Cave "Where the Wild roses Grow" (Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds cover)

Antony & the Johnsons "Perfect Day" (Lou Reed cover)

Hajime Chitose "Birthday" (Sugarcubes cover)

The Last Dance "Dead Man's Party" (Oingo Boingo cover)

It's just the way the medication makes her.

One of my favorite albums released last year was the eponymous effort of self-described "Brecthian punk cabaret" duo, The Dresden Dolls. And leave it to the innovative minds who decided to fuse riot grrrl angst with the honest social commentary in the style of Kurt Weill to create a full-fledged "karaoke verite" video throughout which they lip-synch Avril Lavigne's "Together." Perhaps we'll now have to expand our definition of cover songs to those that weren't actually covered. You can see the Dolls' "Together" video, as well as tons of their other stuff, by visiting their video download page.

Who sang what now?

I'll preface this post full of songs you wouldn't imagine being covered by the people covering them by mentioning a cover I've seem linked a few different places today: NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" as covered by Nina Gordon (ex-Veruca Salt). Yeah. Um. I don't like it. [Better] Indie artists singing rap songs is pretty predictable nowadays and I don't find anything spectacular about her following suit. Of course, I have a deep-seated dislike of Nina Gordon that's partially based on being forced to listen to her whine the insipid lyrics of songs like "Horses in the City" at a listening party years ago and being reprimanded by an acquaintance for making fun of it all with my best gal pal Lisa. But, I digress. Her covers are okay, I guess, and you can get the aforementioned track along with a few others (I'm partial to "Nobody's Fool," myself) by visiting her site.

Lemar "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" (The Darkness cover)
I certainly didn't foresee an R&B cover of this nu-glam smash coming our way, but then again, I'm rarely looking for any modern R&B covers of anything.

Nancy Sinatra "Let Me Kiss You" (Morrissey cover)
I love Nancy Sinatra. Love her. And her recent self-titled, chock-full-of-covers album makes me feel warm inside like I just downed four shots of Jack Daniels. (The Jarvis Cocker-penned "Don't Let him Waste Your Time" is my current favorite.)

Lindsay Lohan "Don't Move On/Living for the City/Changes" (Marty Blasick [producer and songwriter], Stevie Wonder, and David Bowie cover medley)
As you probably well know, I really have a thing for starfucking good girls gone bad and Lindsay is totally my girl, yo, but I really can't defend this. Perhaps I need to see Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen to put it all in context so I can understand its deeper meaning, thus forcing me to reevaluate my opinion. Um. Or not.

Faces of Sarah "...Baby One More Time" (Britney Spears cover)
Soooooooo many people in sooooooooooo many genres have covered this song, from lounge acts to Scot pop hipsters to power-punk bands to reggae gals to Zappas. And still I was surprised to find this. I guess I have an unrealistic idea in my head that goth bands would be too cool and aloof to want to even acknowledge the existence of popular artists. 'Cause god knows I wouldn't have when I was all gothed out. (I know it's hard for younger readers out there to imagine, but there was a time when irony wasn't cool and things actually had to be old before we got nostalgic for them.) But in this day and age, I bet this is probably one of their most popular numbers and at least a handful of their fans go in the hopes they'll hear it. And that's good for the band. Every ticket sold helps contribute a little bit to the next mesh shirt or pewter ankh pendant. Ahhhhh. Goth. Now, those were the days.

I've got a driver, and that's a start.

I've had a cold for ages and finally went to a doctor. She gave me hydrocodone, which was a pretty cool trip until my body started to reject it and I freaked the hell out. May the following tracks make you feel as if you're on narcotics as well.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Matt Sweeney "Ignition" (R. Kelly cover)
Okay, I'd let these pros behind my wheel any day. Whiny indie rock boys thuggin' it out? Yeah, I'd let their lovin' in my trunk, if you know what I mean. (And I'm sure you do.)

Johnny Hollow "People are Strange" (Doors cover)
If there were a 2005 remake of The Lost Boys, this cover should replace the one Echo and the Bunnymen did for the original. This is far more horrorshow.

Cristina "Drive My Car (Long Version)" (Beatles cover)
Those of you who are currently down with Swedish (edit: Norwegian, sorry!) dance-pop sensation Annie, might want to check out the work Cristina put out in the '80s. It's Girls at Our Best! meets the B-52s at a party held by the Flirts where Dale Bozzio gets drunk and takes off her plastic bra.

Tom Waits "Heigh-Ho!" (from Disney's Snow White)
This is the version the dwarves sing in hell.

I bought a ticket to the world, but now I've come back again.

I've never found covers of some of the songs that really remind me of my recently departed friend Sherie, such as the Thompson Twins' "Lies," whose chorus became a sort of nickname she had for me to the tune, "Lize, Lize, Lizaaa." Nor have I found a remake of ABC's "The Look of Love," a song whose words we'd once completely rewritten and left as a message on my dad's answering machine. But there are others out there, and during the godawful (pun not necessarily intended) contemporary Christian medleys that her family chose to play at her funeral service, I tried my best to imagine the following songs (the originals, of course) playing instead.

Will.I.Am. and Fergie "True" (Spandau Ballet cover)
I don't think I ever really liked this song, but Sherie did. I found it terribly overblown and grandiose and would often mock the overdramatic melancholy of it all by loudly singing the "I bought a ticket to the wo-ooo-ooorld" line in my best foppish timbre directly in her ear ad nauseam. Good times. Similarly, I was pretty much over the Black Eyed Peas last album immediately, although the "Hey, Mama" iPod commercial did intrigue me for a second. That said, I do, however, find myself mesmerized by Fergie's hip-shaking, if for no other reason than I can't imagine that a human waist can actually be that small and still sustain life.

Jennifer Batten "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" (Michael Jackson cover)
Everyone loved Thriller, didn't they? I remember one day Sherie and I must've been hopped up on sugar and played WBSS on repeat for about an hour, dancing around like maniacs and conga-ing around her house loudly chanting "Ma Ma Se, Ma Ma Sa, Ma Ma Coo Sa." God, being a total dork can feel so fun when you're 10.

This track is by one of the few females in the guitar-shred realm who happened to also play in MJ's touring band and I don't really care for it, but I thought posting the Whitney/Mya/Usher version seemed too predictable.

Scorpions "Drive" (Cars cover)
Sherie and her mom took me to what I consider to be the first "real" concert I attended—i.e. the first concert I attended that I actually wanted to go to rather than one I was dragged along to. (Beatlemania, Merle Haggard and Beach Boys sans Brian Wilson, I'm looking in your direction.) It was at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis in 1984 and featured The Cars with Wang Chung as openers. Pretty rad, no? anyhow, we attended with Sherie's mom and brother and a boy Sherie liked. I remember that, during "Drive," she gave me a look just before turning to her beau as coyly as an awkward 12-year-old girl could and serenading him with the question, "Who's gonna drive you home ... tonight?" It was totally cheesy (or "queer," as she would have said at the time) and it made me laugh really hard. I mean, come on, her mom was going to drive him home.

Speedbuggy "Pretty in Pink" (Psychedelic Furs cover)
I remember Sherie thinking that the line "she gives him these clothes as cars collide" was "she gives him a clove as cars go by," which is actually a much better lyric, in my opinion. Seriously, why all the talk of coats and clothes in that song? I never got it then and I still don't. Man, I haven't smoked a clove in ages. (P.S. It was in the beginning of her dark adolescent years that Sherie taught me what cloves even were.)

Eve's Plum "Save a Prayer" (Duran Duran cover)
Sherie and I were hardcore Durannies. The day I bought the clamshell VHS DD video collection, was one of our happiest days ever. We were ecstatic that my dad was cool enough not to care that it had some sort of "adult content" sticker on it thanks to all the hard-nipple action of the "Girls on Film" and "The Chauffeur" videos, but we did have to be careful that her mom not catch us watching it, which proved a challenge since we wore that damned thing out. (I'm talking to the point of memorizing all of the dialogue—particularly Simon's deranged Shakespearean ramblings—throughout the overwrought long version of "Waiting for the Nightboat.") But "Save a Prayer" held a special place in our hearts. We could just picture John slow dancing with us as it played. And, you know, that video was educational too. I didn't even know Sri Lanka existed until I saw them in the SAP video cavorting there on elephants. If I were in charge of the music at Sherie's funeral, this would have been the pinnacle tearjerker of the selection. I can't believe she's gone.

Wait, so there's a real human person operating this thing?

So, just when I thought I'd be back and posting super-regularly, I had to leave town for the funeral of a childhood friend who committed suicide. I also used this as a chance to visit with a good friend and see my dad for the first time since his mild stroke over the holidays. Whew! I'm hoping the Year of the Rooster has better things in store for us all.

On a happier note: One of you wonderful bloggers out there recently posted "Girl About Town" by the band Helen Love and I'm absolutely obsessed with it! Thank you. While hunting out info on the band, I discovered that you can download a cover of the track by power-pop-punk staples The Queers at this site.

Working for The Man every night and day.

Man, I've been attempting to post these for the last few days but dammit if life doesn't get in the way sometimes.

Guided By Voices "Sympathy for the Devil" (Rolling Stones cover)
On Dec. 30, my old pal Ryan and I caught what is rumored to be the penultimate GBV show ever. And it was pretty good. We think. For, as GBV themselves tend to do before a show, we got—how you say?—absolutely plastered. So plastered that we felt the desperate need to leave pre-encore, which means we missed the bulk of their poppier selections. Eh, whatever. I've seen them about 25-30 times, so I've seen them perform them before. And, because it was one of their last shows, they focused mostly on their own catalog, but usually they play at least one or two covers. Like this one.

Cosa Nostra "Proud Mary" (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover)
Hmmm. This is an interesting early-'70s Mexican funk/R&B/garage/psych cover.

The Killers "Why Don't You Find Out for Yourself" (Morrissey cover)
I admit it: I'm a sucker for all of the new new-wave outfits. Any time The Killers or The Rapture or Interpol or The Arcade Fire or Ted Leo & The Pharmacists (or what have you) hit my appropriately titled "On the Go" iPod playlist, the spring in my step (or should I say strut?) increases tenfold. Of course, as a cover lover, I'd prefer to hear said bands tackle songs in genres other than those that have so obviously influenced them, but that's a lot to expect, I suppose.

So this is the new year.

Hey, remember me? I'm the gal who's been too busy and/or too sick to post the last couple of weeks. Here's a quick belated Happy New Year to you all via themed cover songs. I'll do my best to come back in full force as soon as the NyQuil withdrawal subsides.

Front Line Assembly and Tiffany "New Year's Day" (U2 cover)

Arab Strap "New Year" (Sugababes cover)

Loop the loop.

You'd think that, when I hatched my bombard-them-with-Christmas-covers plan, I might've saved the best for last. But no. I'm just as random as ever. That's what you love about me, right?

Anyhoo, this may (or may not) be my last post before Christmas, so thanks to all of you for reading and an extra thanks to those who've commented or e-mailed thanking me for what I do here. It makes me feel great to know I'm not alone in my sickness.

Powder "Christmas Don't Be Late" (Chipmunks cover)
When I first heard this track, I pictured a twee little gal singing it backed by your standard trucker-capped backup band. Instead, it's these characters. Go figure. I guess it's about time LA got a Dale Bozzio for the new millennium.

Low "Blue Christmas" (Elvis Presley cover)
Another one for your next Slit Your Wrists at Christmas mix.

Hanson "What Christmas Means to Me" (Stevie Wonder cover)
Many of the holiday songs I've posted here used to be clear-the-music-department-of-customers favorites of mine. This, on the other hand, was a standard "how can I get my snotty, slacker, hipper-than-thou co-workers to get the hell away from me for three fucking minutes?" track. Ah, the indie glares I'd get! I just learned that Mercury just re-released Hanson's 1997 Snowed In, from whence I got this, as The Best of Hanson: The Christmas Collection as part of their 20th Century Masters series. Um. Yeah. We all knew Armageddon was nigh.

The Maddox Brothers and Rose "Jingle Bells" (Traditional)
This is my least favorite Christmas song, but I love this old-school hillbilly country version.

Shoutin' out with glee.

I don't got no time for jibba jabba, so just listen.

Daniel Johnston "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (Marks)

The Humpers "Run, Rudolph, Run" (Chuck Berry cover)

Me, I'll be just fine.

Vic 20 "Marshmallow World" (Darlene Love cover)
My Vic 20 never did anything this cool. All I could use it for was graphic-less "video" games in which I had to maneuver my way out of a bog using simple word commands.

My Chemical Romance "All I Want for Christmas is You" (Mariah Carey cover)
My favorite local cable access video show, Ken Mottet's The Otherside, played an MCR video a few weeks back. I found myself just slightly less than intrigued with the music, but knew that a 14-year-old version of me would love it and would become obsessed with the hot geek-goth look of the boys in the band. And, really, anyone who covers my favorite secular pop Christmas song (shut up, it's some of Mariah's best work!) is okay by me.

The Masters of the Hemisphere "The First Noel" (Sandys)
From one of the Kindercore Christmas comps, comes a whimsical little indie First Noel from a band I'd never heard of. Imagine.

Donny & Marie "Winter Wonderland" (Bernard/Smith)
Shit, what I'd give to get back the Donny & Marie portable record player (with microphone!) I had as a child. I loved that thing. I could dance and sing and pretend I was Mormon. Pretty awesome.

Ru Paul "Hard Candy Christmas" (from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas—Dolly Parton's version is probably most popular)
Many thanks to my pal Ray who was able to get this track to me after I hunted for about three months to no avail. I remember watching TBLWIT repeatedly on cable as a child and getting teary-eyed when the whores all went their separate ways. Like Dolly, I kind of always related to whores. Even at 8 years old. I know, I'm weird. Anyhow, it's even better with drag queen banter. I miss Ru Paul.

Fall on your knees.

Sonic Youth "Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope" (Martin Mull cover)
This cover always perplexed me. It's pretty annoying.

Melt Banana "White Christmas" (Well, this is called "White Christmas," but it's really a somewhat fucked-up version of "Here Comes Santa Claus.") (Autry)
You know I love Japanese covers. The stranger the better.

Sufjan Stevens "O Holy Night" (Adams/Dwight)
I love this so much I can't even believe it.

Pond "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" (Bach? Handel? Traditional?)
Not bad for a band I totally forgot ever existed. (And I only knew because a Sub Pop distributor pushed a promo on me, which I promptly forgot to listen to.)

Richard Davies "Do they Know It's Christmas (Feed the World)" (Band Aid cover)
Okay, who slipped the ativin into this guy's eggnog?

Gets colder day by day.

Coldplay "2000 Miles" (Pretenders cover)
The original used to be a big favorite of mine in high [or was that middle?] school. I wish I liked Coldplay more.

Ivy "Christmastime is Here" (Vince Guaraldi & the Peanuts gang)
A friend of mine in high school could dance exactly like Peanuts characters. It was awesome. (From Nettwerk's Maybe this Christmas Tree comp.)

Cranes "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" (John Lennon & Yoko Ono cover)
Like nails on a chalkboard to me. I remember that when I heard the Cranes were opening for the Cure in 1992, I strategically planned to miss them. I was successful. I don't mind dream pop from time to time, but I can't stand this baby-voiced schtick. Hell, I'd rather listen to Jordy's "Dur Dur D'être Un Bébé" than this. (From Rock for Choice's O Come All Ye Faithful comp.)

C3-P0 & R2-D2 "Sleigh Ride" (Anderson)
This is not as much a cover as it is an insane reworking. And could C3-P0 be more condescending? (From Christmas in the Stars.)

Taime Downe (ex-Faster Pussycat) "Silent Night" (Traditional)
Yep, you read right. (From the We Wish You a Hairy Christmas comp.)

I'll give it to someone special.

Spectrum "Santa Claus" (Sonics cover)
I'll have what they're having.

The Cocteau Twins "Frosty the Snowman" (Nelson/Rollins)
At least half of the Cocteau Twins' non-holiday songs sound Christmassy to me so I'm not sure this was even necessary.

Jimmy Eat World "Last Christmas" (Wham! cover)
Leave it to the, uh, kings (?) of emo to make this song sound even gayer than the original.

No Doubt "Oi to the World" (The Vandals cover)
Even after a decade or more, I still can't definitively say whether I love or hate No Doubt.

The Vandals "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" (Tchaikovsky)
The Vandals Christmas album is another all-time holiday favorite of mine. You should buy it.

Come, I tell you.

These are from another of my all-time favorite Christmas comps, Sympathy for the Record Industry's two-disc Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. My favorite track is Spectrum's "Santa Claus," but that's not a cover, now is it? Here are a couple of tracks that belong here. Edit: Well, except that it is a cover. A Sonics cover. With a lot of poetic license. My bad. Maybe tomorrow.

Bomboras "Little Drummer Boy" (Davis/Onorati/Simeone)
There is an unwritten law that all surf instrumental covers must break into "Tequila" at some point. Deal with it.

The New Bomb Turks "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home" (Darlene Love/Phil Spector cover)
Not all punk covers break into "Runaround Sue," nor should they. Still, this is far more entertaining and lively than Death Cab for Cutie's version.

Let nothing you dismay.

Warning: Because I have slew of holiday songs to post before Christmas and I have very limited web space, in the next few weeks, tracks will probably only remain on the site for a day or two. So download early and often, kids. I'm doing my best to let you know so I don't have to field questions like this from mannerless ingrates.

Now that that's out of the way, these tracks come from what was once my favorite holiday album, the long out-of-print A Christmas Present to You from Zero Hour. That was back when I was all about effects-laden and/or syrupy lo-fi bands nobody else had ever heard of. Especially those on Zero Hour, as I mentioned way back here. Sigh ... was it really a decade ago that I was in my early 20s and had that kind of time? It seems like just yesterday I was stealing all the crap promos from work, but I digress.

Unfortunately, my favorite tracks from this album are the non-cover songs, such as Kittywinder's "Don't Wanna Hear No Merry Christmas" and Nicole Blackman's spoken-word "What I Want for Christmas," but at least it's not full of the same ol' Nat King Coles, Bing Crosbys, Mariahs and Enyas most Xmas comps are jam-packed with.

Grover w/Kevin Salem "Fairytale of New York" (Pogues/Kirsty MacColl cover)
This doesn't stray much from the feel of the original, but I like it nonetheless. In fact, I may be the only person who actually paid money for Grover's full-length album. The one with the Barbie doll face on the cover. Anyone? Anyone?

22 Brides "A Coventry Carol" (Traditional)
I think the gals in this folk duo were sisters. It's kinda pretty, I guess. That's about all I have to say here.

The Dirt Merchants "Jingle Bells" (Traditional)
Kinda noisy, kinda poppy, kinda rockabilly-y.

The Black Watch "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" (Traditional)
Back when the Black Watch were on Zero Hour, former Medicine frontman Brad Laner produced their album. And it shows. Very distortion-heavy sonic drones and goth-sounding violin and shoegazery overtones. (And I've never seen an album cover that screams "recommend me to fans of My Bloody Valentine or Medicine" than this.) If I could afford drugs on my measly salary, I'd consider getting into this kind of music again.

Space Needle "Silent Night" (Traditional)
Um, speaking of distortion and sonic drones, allow me to introduce you to the song that saved my sanity on more than one occasion during the holiday season. No, it's not because I find this track aurally pleasing, to say the least. My love for this track comes from the fact that, back when I needed a break during my former holiday retail whoring, playing this track ensured that the entire music department would clear out. Yeah, I had to endure a scowl or two—not to mention the tedious and seemingly relentless dissonance of this "song"—but it was worth it not to have to sell another Yanni album to a bitchy Gold Coaster.

All right, already.

As Joss Stone proved a little while back with her [excruciating, in my opinion] cover of "Fell in Love With a Girl Boy," nowadays a song need not be in the grave before someone decides to resurrect it. Here's further proof.

Ada "Maps" (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
The original might make you want to dance and sing along, this German electronic chill-out version just makes me want to sleep.

Ben Lee "Float On" (Modest Mouse cover)
I loved Ben Lee's first album so much when it came out. I still like his stuff, but it's just not as amazing now that he's no longer 12. Still, I'll forgive his live slip-ups. He used to be cute.

Jeffrey Lewis Band "The Modern Age" (The Strokes cover)
Comic books and anti-folk? Previously stereotypical slacker types are too damned motivated nowadays.

Richard Cheese "Hate to Say I Told You So" (The Hives cover)
I had a few requests recently for more Cheese, and I'm nothing if not a giver.

REM "NYC" (Interpol cover)
God, I know it's lame to be all "cool" and say I don't like REM now, but I really don't like REM now.

Grum Lee "Get Free" (The Vines cover)
Prepare your ears for the acoustic, um, stylings of France's Grum Lee, whose covers have been submitted to and available on various sites over the years. I can't tell if he's trying to make outsider art (which would, of course, mean that it couldn't technically be outsider art) or if he's completely serious (which would mean it could be outsider), but either way, his stuff will probably frighten and amuse you in equal amounts.

Scissor Sisters "Take Me Out" (Franz Ferdinand cover)
Back in the day, everyone and their brother posted this. Well, they probably posted the full (read: a little longer and a lot quieter) version, but whatever. I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon just in case anyone out there missed it. I really love this. It makes me long for the time when Elton John actually wrote good songs. I was hoping they'd play it back in October when I saw the Sisters at the Metro, but no such luck.

Also: I'm preparing a slew of holiday covers for you. Be on the lookout.