It’s one of my days where I’m feeling incredibly lazy so you know what that means: a post loaded with cover versions!

MP3 Belle & Sebastian – Whiskey In The Jar (expired) ()
Some may consider this to be close to blasphemy. Others will think that it’s awesome. I’m in the latter camp, largely because I love what can do with just about anything, and also because I don’t really like the older versions of this song all that much. I can appreciate it, but I don’t particularly like it. It’s not the kind of thing that suits B&S particularly well, and I could never imagine an original B&S song sounding anything even remotely like this, but that does help make it all the more enjoyable. One of the best things about covers is when a band can take a song that doesn’t suit them in the least and make it work for them, and that’s what we have here.

MP3 – Dead Set On Destruction (expired) ()
I’m a huge fan of Trip Shakespeare, and honestly believe they were one of the greatest bands that never became huge. For those unaware of their brilliance, Trip Shakespeare were an experimental-pop-rock band from Minneapolis who put out a number of albums in the late 80s and early 90s before being dropped by their label and splitting up. Their members went on to form Semisonic, The Flops, and a bunch of other solo releases. While all of these were also good, nothing ever came close to the material Trip Shakespeare were putting out. In fact, I might actually do a full post on them in the near future. Anyways, this is a cover of a Husker Du song, but I can’t tell you how it compares to the original as I don’t really know it. I’m only a casual Husker Du listener, so don’t really know anything about this song other than this song is pretty rocking, which works well enough for me.

MP3 – In Between Days (expired) ()
We can’t have a covers post without an entry from Mr Folds, can we? Ben Folds’ cover of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days’ is carried out perfectly, in that if I didn’t already know that this was a cover, I wouldn’t question for a second that it was an original Folds song. He takes an already excellent song and makes it his own. It’s an energetic, pounding piano tour de force that suits Folds so well.

MP3 – Know Your Onion! (expired) ()
Oh how these “cool” indie bands like to cover each other. It’s certainly not a bad thing, although if I’m honest, this isn’t the greatest example of it. Of Montreal and The Shins are both great bands, but this cover lacks something. I’m not sure what it is, maybe it’s how close it stays to the original. I kind of expect Of Montreal to do something daring or make it more manic or something else to give it something of a hook, but this is a pretty by the numbers cover. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very good, but could have done with that little extra to make it unique.

And that’s it for today. I’ve noticed quite an upsurge in traffic today, which is pretty cool. So a big hello to all of the new readers I seem to have picked up in the past 24 hours, and I hope you enjoy what you find here. I guess this is it for today, although there’s a certain irony that these “lazy” posts seem to end up taking longer to put together than the regular ones. Oh, and before I go, I’d just like to share this: Last night I ordered just what might be the greatest t-shirt ever created – The Communist Party. You get where the title came from now? Communists.. Cold War.. duck and cover.. cover songs.. I’m far too dorky for my own good at times.

The Communist Party