Another Form of Relief

Nirvana may be one of the laziest bands I’ve ever heard. Releasing a bunch of material between 1989 and 1994, they then started falling back on easy releases. Live acoustic shows, a singles collection, a box of rarities, a live set at Reading have all appeared in the years since. I’m sure it’s great for fans, but it seems to be taking the piss a bit to put out this same stuff over and again. You’d think after fifteen years they’d finally have that fabled fifth album ready, but it doesn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Guns N’ Roses will put out another album before these guys at this rate.

Continuing to dredge out old material, we have a reissue of the band’s debut album, Bleach, which is somehow twenty years old at this point. It’s never done a great deal for me if I’m honest, but nor has much of Nirvana’s output. I think that maybe I’m a couple of years too young to fully “get” the band. It’s the same reason the Pixies are largely lost on me. Don’t get me wrong, I like both bands, but they’ll never be held in the same regard as Weezer or Pavement and the such. All that said, I do like About A Girl, mostly because I was won over my the MTV Unplugged version of it, but the original is pretty damn good too.

It’s quite surprising that I haven’t done a covers post since last November. When I first started this thing I was doing them every couple of weeks as a handy fall back mechanism that saved me having to write about anything more substantial. I’m only doing one today because I’m tired and need something quick and easy to post, and covers are pretty good for fitting that description.

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I’ve never been a big fan of Tori Amos other than a handful of songs. I’ve never been a big fan of Nirvana either, but I probably like a few more of their songs. So I wasn’t overly excited about this particular cover given that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is one of the ones I do like. Surprisingly though, I ended up enjoying this version. It’s the polar opposite of the Nirvana original: it’s slow, it only has a piano behind the vocal, and you can clearly make out the lyrics. I don’t even think it’s all that fair to compare it to the original given it shares very little with it beyond the words.

MP3 Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit (expired) (Nirvana)

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I seem to be one of the few people who will admit to wholeheartedly liking Saves The Day. Sure, they aren’t perfect, but albums like ‘Through Being Cool’ and most of ‘Stay What You Are’ are uniformly enjoyable. It’s a shame though that their most interesting release is the one most often overlooked: 1998’s ‘I’m Sorry I’m Leaving’ EP. Five songs, all stripped down to basic acoustic arrangements. While four of these are Saves The Day originals, the collection ends with a cover of Modern English’s ‘I Melt With You’. Their cover doesn’t change the formula all that much, aside from simplifying it a little, but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless. Even if I didn’t even know it was a cover for the first couple of years that I had it.

MP3 Saves The Day – I Melt With You (expired) (Modern English)

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As usual, we end with the obligatory cover of a song I’m not familiar with. I have never heard the original version of ‘Bad Reputation’. Actually, I don’t even know who Freedy Johnson is. All of which means there isn’t a great deal of commentary I can offer you on this song, beyond some basic facts. The song was released as an exclusive on iTunes late in 2005, around the time that ‘Plans’ was released. It’s also a rather good song, and if I didn’t know it was a cover, I’d probably assume it was a Death Cab song as it certainly sounds like something that could come from them.

MP3 Death Cab For Cutie – Bad Reputation (expired) (Freedy Johnson)

I know, I know, I’ve been incredibly slack in updating this place of late. When I started this thing, I always swore to myself that I wouldn’t be one of those bloggers who often disappears for big gaps and then suddenly pops up again with some lame excuse for not posting stuff. Unfortunately, that’s where we are though. I’d like to think these are somewhat reasonable excuses though. Partly I’ve been working an absolute ton lately, which eats into my time. Secondly, the host I use for the majority of my mp3s has been having no end of problems over the past week (and there’s more to come, yay). Finally, I’ve been putting together the first ‘Another Form of Relief presents..’ live music event. It’ll feature It Hugs Back, 4 or 5 Magicians and Favours for Sailors, and will be held on December 6 in Tunbridge Wells. A little more detail can be found on our new ‘Live Events‘ page. If you’re going to be in the south of England on that date, I implore you to attend. An awesome night of fantastic music is assured.

MP3 The Polyphonic Spree – Lithium (expired) (Nirvana)
I should probably declare now that I hate The Polyphonic Spree. I don’t particularly like their songs, I find the lead singer’s voice largely annoying and as a whole, I find the whole group to be a little on the creepy side. Despite all that though, I really like this. ‘Lithium’ is one of the few Nirvana songs that I really like (not a big fan there either), and somehow, it suits the Polyphonic Spree to a tee. I have absolutely no idea how this happened. The two bands are pretty much as far opposed from each other as possible, yet it works. Having a whole choir for large sections of the song works. The instrumentation works. Hell, even the lead singer’s voice seems to suit it. Very, very weird, but very, very good.

MP3 Counting Crows – Rain King / Thunder Road (live) (expired) (Bruce Springsteen)
In something of a contrast from the previous song, I love both parties involved in this one. I’m not the world’s biggest Springsteen fan (always try to explore more, never get very far), but the songs I do like are great. I also have a very soft spot for Counting Crows. I know over recent years they have ventured further and further into middle of the road territory, but their first few albums are still stunningly good. The first thing to note about this cover is that it isn’t just the cover. It’s taken from a live recording where Counting Crows suddenly broke into ‘Thunder Road’ part way through one of their own songs called ‘Rain King’. This in itself is a great song, and the most striking thing about this performance is how easily the band are able to segue from ‘Rain’ to ‘Thunder’ and then back to ‘Rain’ again. If you’re only really interested in the cover part, you’ll need to jump to around the three minute mark of the song, but I assure you the medley as a whole is far better.

MP3 Rilo Kiley – After Hours (expired) (The Velvet Underground)
Now I can’t stand the sound of The Velvet Underground, so this is the one song where I’m not familiar with the original. This obviously makes it difficult to write about a song, particularly in the context of a cover. As such, I can’t tell you whether this is a good cover or a bad cover. All I can really tell you is that I quite like it as a song. Granted I have a weakness for all things Rilo, and I’m not claiming that this is among their best, but it’s a pleasant enough three minutes. I don’t know when this was recorded, only that it appeared on The Execution of All Things single. It sounds kind of old, particularly when judged by Jenny’s voice, but if anyone has any idea when this was recorded, leave a comment to let me know.

That’s it cover wise. I have a whole list of things I want to write about here, so hosting willing, I’ll be back with another update or two over the course of today.

Boy am I running out of puns for these things.

Well it’s that time of the fortnight for one of these posts. As usual, we have an entirely random batch of coverings, including some excellent ones, and at least one that may actually be considered a crime against music.

MP3 Bright Eyes – Burn Rubber (expired) (Simon Joyner)
I should probably get this one out of the way first seeing as it’s the one here where I don’t actually know the original. I’ve looked around for it but can’t find it anywhere. If you happen to have it and would like to send it to me, that would be greatly appreciated. It’s a little more abstract than most Bright Eyes songs, although beyond that, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t one of his. It appeared as a b-side on the ‘Take It Easy’ EP and does work rather well as one of the Digital Ash type songs.

MP3 Nickel Creek – Spit On A Stranger (expired) (Pavement)
So we come to this weeks “ear bleeding” entry, thanks to those nice folks at Nickel Creek. First of all, covering ‘Spit On A Stranger’, one of Pavement’s finest works, is a bad idea idea as it is, but to do this to it is just downright wrong. How exactly did anyone think that this might be a good idea? I’ve included it here as I think most cover songs are interesting, even ones like this. Hell, one of you might even enjoy it. I don’t know what it is about it that makes me dislike it so much, but it just seems horrible to me. I don’t know what Nickel Creek are like beyond this song, so they might be pretty good for all I know. Doing this to a classic is just awful though.

MP3 Paul Anka – Smells Like Teen Spirit (expired) (Nirvana)
I’m sure that some of you may consider this one to be a musical crime too, but showing how bizarre taste can be, I think it’s absolutely fantastic. This is made all the more intriguing by the fact I can’t stand Paul Anka on the most part at all. It takes a hell of a lot of skill to take a seminal song like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and turn it into something completely different that still works though. If you thought the Ukulele Orchestra version I posted the other day, wait until you hear this one. Somehow turning the song into a full on big band swing song without a hint of irony, it really is one of the best covers I’ve heard in quite sometime.

MP3 Snow Patrol – You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will. (live) (expired) (Bright Eyes)
I’m no Snow Patrol beyond a handful of songs, but all credit to them for taking on this song and managing to pull it off. I think this was recorded as part of a BBC session a while ago, but I’m not entirely sure. It’s not perfect, and at times sounds like Lightbody is reading the lyrics from a piece of paper or something, but it still sounds pretty good. It’s a shame that it takes a cover song to hear that Snow Patrol can actually do more interesting things than release twelve different versions of ‘Run’ and ‘Spitting Games’.

Obligatory pimping time

Just a quick reminder that there is only just over a week left on the eMusic 50 free mp3s promotion so be sure to grab them while you still can.

Also don’t forget that Audiolunchbox are also offering 50 free mp3s. I know that you crazy kids can never get enough free music.

In the blogs..

There’s a fantastic post up over at Good Hodgkins where a bunch of music bloggers talk about the songs that are significant to them. Not only do you get a bunch of great songs, there is also some fascinating commentary alongside it.

I can’t believe I forgot to link to this earlier, but I Guess I’m Floating has an excellent piece called ‘Mommy, Where Do Blogs Come From?‘ that looks into the songs behind the names of the major music blogs. As well as being rather enlightening, it’s also an awful lot of fun.

I’ve been pretty busy over the past few days with various things, which explains the lighter blogging schedule. As such, this isn’t a “proper” post, more a collection of random odds and ends that I want to babble about but don’t really require a whole post.

So Clor announced that they are splitting up today. This news was greeted with the kind of media storm that is helpfully illustrated to your right. Ok, so that may be a little harsh, but it does seem as if no one really cares about this. I’m not exactly cut up about it, but I think it’s something of a shame. The first album was fairly fun and I was looking forward to what they would be coming up with in the future. Included here is ‘Love + Pain’, probably the funkiest song of 2005.

MP3 Clor – Love + Pain (expired)

I really need to find some new bands that I can jump on the bandwagon of. I’m really not getting much out of the current batch doing the blog rounds. I don’t like Tapes n Tapes much. I don’t like Band of Horses at all. I’ve never been one for Sufjan. Cold War Kids leave me, well, cold. Bishop Allen are ok, but what’s the big deal? Same thing for Feist. I find Beirut rather bland. I don’t get the Lily Allen thing at all. And what the hell is so good about Gnarls Barkley? I guess these things go in cycles, but it feels like six months ago I was falling over myself finding new bands, now I’m not finding much that grabs me at all.

There’s a good chance I’ll be seeing the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in a couple of weeks, which has the potential to be very cool. They play a mean Nirvana.

MP3 Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain – Smells Like Teen Spirit (live) (expired)

When I wrote about Malcolm Middleton I mentioned an irrational hatred for Arab Strap. I’d never really listened to their music for some reason knew that I hated them. Anyways, I finally got past that stupid attitude, listened to a few albums and feel really bad about all that. They really are quite awesome. I seem to have only scratched the surface of their material too. Here’s the song that has grabbed my attention the most over the past few weeks, with it’s wonderful upbeat depressing style. I adore that delivery too. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a band that has embraced their accents and dialects to such an extent that Arab Strap have.

MP3 Arab Strap – The Shy Retirer (expired)

Think that’s about it for now. I’ll hopefully be back to more normal updates tomorrow. I think I might throw in a post like this every now and then though, it’s kind of handy for the little things. Be sure to check back over the weekend when I’ll have an interview with the most excellent Devin Davis.