New Artists, NEW Songs: A Year in Versions
(aka Countdown Coverfolk: On Genre Fragmentation and the Loss of the Popular)
December 30th, 2008 — 06:22 pm
Back in the mid eighties, just before the emergence of MTV transformed the curious mutual symbiosis of pop music and pop culture, my teenage cousin would stay up late on New Year’s Eve taping Casey Kasem and, later, Shadoe Stevens as they counted down the hits on the American Top 40. I wasn’t that hardcore a collector, and anyway, as a middle school outcast, my musical tastes were only just awakening, but I tended to listen, too, if only to demonstrate that I, too, was cool enough to care what was on the radio.
Notably, most years, the bulk of the songs were familiar enough for a singalong. And why not? Back then, the reason we taped songs off the radio in the first place was that we had no other songs in mind. It was the proto-Napster, and it served us well, in part because the musical spectrum it contained was so finite that it didn’t matter if we had to stay up all night to capture it all.
A quarter of a century later, the world has changed several times over. My cousin falls asleep early, exhausted from playing with her one year old twins, and the very concept of popular music has been fragmented by micro-audiences, global reach, and a multiplicity of sources. Music has become a multi-tiered game, and the stuff that passes for Pop isn’t just easily avoidable, it’s increasingly hard to encounter by accident. The Top 40 still exists as a reflection of crossover appeal and sales, but other than as a marketing measure, the conceit of “popular” doesn’t mean much anymore. And in a century defined by an infinite number of tripartite MySpace designations, no one can claim to be a musical polymath.
Simultaneously, I’m not as connected to mainstream pop music as I once was. The beat-heavy club music my students pick up on YouTube and MTV2, and subsequently play in the hallways between classes, is more and more like the sounds of an alien culture. I have a vague sense that American Idol is driving some performers to chart-dom, but since we choose not to have television programming in my household, the voices don’t resonate. Spinning the dials on long drives to the city only exposes the vast array of what’s happening without my knowledge; getting most of my music through the blogs (and, more narrowly, through my mp3 blog RSS feed) means finding more familiarity in The Pitchfork Top 100 than on a list less than half that size on what passes for pop radio these days.
Over the past few weeks, as my fellow bloggers blanket the blogs with lists, I’ve toyed with the idea of tracking down some decent folk covers of this year’s Top 40 anyway, mostly to see if it could be done. I had in mind, I think, some grand plan to collapse the divide between pop and the rest of us, and in doing so demonstrate the continued importance of the re-creation and reclamation which has always defined folk as a cultural process, exposing the folk lens on culture as perhaps even more relevant than ever in a pastiche culture of niches and nodes.
But if the point of covers is to use the familiar as a bridge to discover new artists and new songs, and to use the new in turn to rediscover the song itself, then compiling a list of Top 40 covers of is, subjectively speaking, an inherently failed conceit. A quick glance at this year’s American Top 40 reveals a list weighted heavily with artist names and song titles that don’t ring a bell, except perhaps as cultural icons and memes, famous for being famous. And my suspicion is, playing the songs wouldn’t make them any more familiar.
Things are slightly more resonant on the Pitchfork/Paste/Stereogum/Mojo side of things. There’s real folk here, for one thing. As we’ve discussed here before, the indie world these days includes an acoustic side with delicate authenticity — though certainly, the newest songs of the “independent mainstream” trend towards punkish indiepop more and more, as if coveting the central spot in the mass media mindset which once drove popular song. And the assumption of authenticity extends to the songs themselves, which makes the reconsideration of song that drives coverage by folk musicians, at least, that much more likely in the first place.
I’m not necessarily claiming the indie charts as my own, of course — the breadth of music you see here on Cover Lay Down is, centrally, the stuff I like. But I am claiming the indieworld as the new popular, at least for those of us who live here in virtual life. Though I find myself most comforted in and by the Folk and Americana charts, or even the less country lists over at Twangville, there is little immediate coverage there. On the other hand, the inward gaze of the indie movement creates a platform for same-year covers which rivals that of pop music covers. And since the originals I am familiar with trend more towards the Pitchfork list than the American Top 40, it is to the former which we look for today’s set.
What follows, then, is a short list of my favorite new covers of new popular songs from the indie canon. I’ve allowed for covers of songs from both 2008 and 2007, just to make sure we can honor covers of songs which only hit popular consciousness at the end of the preceding year.
As expected, the list spins heavily indiefolk; both originals and covers will likely be familiar to those who, like me, make it a habit of reading a hundred hip blogs or more just to stay current. Too, as befits a list of hastily-considered songs, some of these covers are rough, and it’s hard to gauge their long-term relevance when the originals remain in the air. But all are worth consideration, whether you’re a folk fan, a blog miner, or just a cover buff. And some are even just plain old great folk music, ready to stand the test of time.
Enjoy, and as always, follow links to purchase if you like what you hear. After all, this is the next generation, both covered and covering; if we want them to be around in another quarter century themselves, they need all the support they can get.
- First Aid Kit: Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (orig. Fleet Foxes)
- After the YouTube video of these two young Swedish kids in a forest glen covering practically everybody’s top ten song of the year blew bloggers away this summer, the teenage sisters who call themselves First Aid Kit were nice enough to rerecord the coversong indoors and release it to the universe. Gorgeous.
- Denison Witmer: Is There A Ghost (orig. Band of Horses)
- The final fruit of our Covers Project partnership with Philly folkstar Denison Witmer back in October, and perhaps the most delicate and sparse of a wonderful set. More about the project, Denison’s new album, and a few more covers from Denison here.
- Ian McGlynn: Mistaken for Strangers (orig. The National)
- NY/NJ singer-songwriter Ian McGlynn replaces the driving beat and fuzzed out rock guitars of the original with a perfect acoustic pianopop atmosphere, turning what was once a wail of angst and noise into a deeper and more contemplative work complete with bells and lovely layered high-pitched voices. From the Memorial Day Parade EP; highly recommended.
- dublinStu: Oxford Comma (orig. Vampire Weekend)
- Harvested from the blogs within the last few weeks, this totally lo-fi take on one of this year’s biggest hits deconstructs what was a pretty simple, potent mix, turning it back into the perfect demo recording we never got to hear. “Acoustic/Melodramatic Popular Song” combo dublinStu warbles off tempo and off pitch, yet remains endearing enough to make me want to coin the term janglefolk. [UPDATE: Will from dublinStu writes to let us know that the song was actually taken from this awesomely amateur, equally lo-fi video, which just makes it that much cooler.]
- STREAM: Sara Lov: Timebomb (orig. Beck)
- STREAM: Sara Lov: My Body is a Cage (orig. Arcade Fire)
- Released to the web as stream-only Cover Lay Down exclusives a few months ago, these poppy tracks from newcomer Sara Lov have since cropped up elseblog galore; head back in time for our original review, and buy The Young Eyes when it drops in January.
- Mystery Jets: Bleeding Love (orig. Leona Lewis)
- Orchestral and anthemic in turn, this fiddle-heavy cover comes from a band that considers themselves powerpop and punk; I find it ultimately more folk rock than anything, though the term is seldom used on this side of the International dateline. Mystery Jets covered this one live over the summer; it made the rounds and ended up stuck in my head.
- Via Audio / Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin: Weird Fishes (orig. Radiohead)
- I keep my eyes open for every in-studio session on blogroll, hoping for good covers of one indie band by another. Like the songs above and below, this one from the combined talents of Via Audio and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, which emerged as part of a recording session hosted by It’s Hard to Find a Friend at the end of April, is typical of the subgenre: on the “MTV unplugged” side of indiefolk, and a bit out of tune by the end, but worth listening to all the same. Ironically, the session also includes a decent take on Nirvana’s Heart Shaped Box.
- Ola Podrida: Calling and Not Calling My Ex (orig. Okkervil River)
- I’m proud to say I heard the original of this one enough to love it before I heard the cover — no mean feat, given how late in the year Okkervil River released it, but then, I was waiting for it to drop, too. The live Ola Podrida version, produced as part of Okkervil River’s YouTube-based covers project which accompanies their newest album, is more of the bedroom variety, celebratory but raw, almost solo, save for a sporadic tambourine; you can hear more Okkervil River covers from other indie artists at the project page.
- Jonna Lee: Human (orig. The Killers)
- A last-minute addition to this list, artist-leaked just yesterday and technically not even due to be released until 2009, this delicate, almost freakfolk rendition of one of the oddest singles from the brand new Killers album just started making the rounds via Last.fm and a YouTube release, and I couldn’t resist its charm. It’s songs like these which help me understand why one of my favorite folkbloggers also runs a sister site of Swedish music. Watch for singer-songwriter Jonna Lee to make a big splash this coming year.
Looking for more countdown covers of this year’s popular songs? Many of these songs and their companion originals are also up over at Hypeful, which has compiled a pretty amazing list of their own 25 Best Cover Songs of 2008; though not all are folk, unsurprisingly, given the modern indiefolk tendency towards stripped-down, fast turn-around covers, the vast majority are sparser than the originals, and a decent percentage of them are delicate, acoustic, or both.
Fellow coverblogger Ray over at Cover Me did a similar post of his year’s best covers last week; it’s worth perusal, too. My Old Kentucky Blog has made many tracks available from his all-covers end-of-year radio show. And popular podcast and coverblog forerunner Coverville has been running a countdown of favorite covers from the past year through his last few shows. In these cases, not all covers emerged in 2008, and not all are folk, either, but novelty will have its influence, and a few favorites of my own from the year can be found in each.
More generally, if you like this sort of indie-bred coverfolk, Captain Obvious’ covers mixtapes are a wonderful secondary source, each well-selected and carefully orchestrated to provide a perfect atmosphere. Many of the tunes you’ll find there come from here, but I get as much back from him, if not more. Add it to your blogroll, and check back often.