SuedeList: Tribute Albums
Compiled by: Christian Hagen
Apologies for not having our scheduled SuedeList last week. Internet providers can be…fickle.
This week, we have a terrific list of some of the best Tribute Albums of all time, and I think you’ll find a few surprises in the mix.
But first, to the links!
SuedeLinks 08/26/11
–Um, you guys, I don’t know why this memo hasn’t been circulated into my inbox, but there is a hardcore band with a parrot for a lead singer. Hatebeak (read that name again. Yes.) has apparently been in existence for quite some time. I know, shame on my hipster reputation for having never heard of a band. But seriously. Hate. Beak. (Buzzfeed)
–Not to borrow exclusively from Buzzfeed, because we should pride ourselves on diversity here (right, three other white men who write for this site?), but someone asked me why we didn’t do a retrospective on the anniversary of Aaliyah’s death. And the truth is: I forgot Aaliyah happened and, therefore, that she died. Don’t get me wrong, I feel bad for forgetting, and for admitting that I forgot. I think it takes bravery to admit such a mistake. Right? Anyway, here’s some pictures of Aaliyah. R.I.P. (Buzzfeed)
–Who’s your favorite late night talk show host? If you said Jay Leno, you’re probably on the wrong site. Personally, I’ve always loved Craig Ferguson. Seriously, read his novel Between the Bridge and the River. It’s actually good! Besides that, he’s a wonderfully honest and personable performer. Plus, dude was a punk rock drummer in the 70s when that was still cool. Mad props. Which is partially why I’ve had such a hard time opening myself to Jimmy Fallon, his main competitor. But the longer he’s behind the desk, the more Fallon has grown into his position, much like Conan in his early days. Check out this rundown of his best musical performances if you’re still not convinced he has skills. (Pajiba)
–I know politics is taboo in internet linkshares. Especially on music sites. That’s like pouring gasoline onto nitroglycerine that’s next to a blowtorch; usually people are already pissed off about some review you posted, so pissing on their political beliefs is just icing on the “Fuck You” cake. But I can’t justify sitting back and letting Warren Buffet’s incredible op-ed in the New York Times go ignored, and I will show it to as many people as I have to, even if I have to print out copies and staple them to peoples’ foreheads. For the love of all that is America, read it. (NYT)
–I thought about just linking to this, but seriously, you shouldn’t even wait the time it will take to click over to another site to hear this song. James Blake and Bon Iver have teamed up for a track called “Fall Creek Boys Choir” (as if you hadn’t already heard about it), and it’s damned pretty. It captures the best of both artists’ recent releases: Melodic and moody and utterly moving. Check it out, right here and now:
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Great Tribute Albums
Douze hommes rapaillés volumes I and II
These albums are a joint endeavour by Québec poet Gilles Bélanger and Karkwa singer Louis-Jean Cormier, to put into music many of Gaston Miron’s poems. Miron is probably Québec’s most influential poet of the last century, and his texts are set here to beautiful music, sung by some of our greatest voices.
À Boris Vian, on n’est pas la pour se faire engueuler
Boris Vian was a jazz musician, a pulp and surrealist novellist, an engineer, a poet and a playwright. He died way too young, but left a mark that noone can ignore. It is rare indeed when you’re favorite novellist and lyricist are the same person. With Boris Vian, it is exactly what it is. This album makes it possible to discover so many of his songs that we’re never recorded while he was alive. A gem of a CD.
-JPG
I Am Sam (Soundtrack)
Regardless of how you feel about Sean Penn’s mental deficiency drama, the soundtrack for I Am Sam, like that of I’m Not There (more on that later) does what too few tribute albums even attempt, which is to make some inspired pairings to some of rock’s most classic songs. With material like that of The Beatles, it would seem hard to screw up, but this disc goes the extra mile with some fantastic star power: Rufus Wainwright is perfectly haunting on “Across the Universe,” while Ben Folds’ “Golden Slumbers” and Eddie Vedder’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” are spot-on. Not every track glistens (Nick Cave is a bold/crazy choice to take on any cover song, let alone something as tender as “Let It Be,” but Nick Cave fans likely will not care), but for a tribute album, it bats closer to a thousand than most, and it’s definitely honorable to the source.
I’m Not There (Soundtrack)
While I Am Sam succeeded by playing it straight with The Beatles’ catalog, the soundtrack for I’m Not There triumphs thanks to some wonderfully unusual takes on Bob Dylan’s tunes. Each track seems to jump out more than the last, with a list of contributors as impressive as it is long: Eddie Vedder, Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus, Cat Power, Jim James, Calexico, Yo La Tengo, Mason Jennings, Jeff Tweedy, Willie Nelson, Sufjan Stevens, The Black Keys, and many more. With this much diversity (it’s two discs long), not every song will please. Some might be divided on Malkmus’ psychadelic freak-out in “Ballad of a Thin Man,” or on hearing Karen O’s notably yelping vocal chords belting “Highway 61 Revisited.” But there’s so much to love here even the most cynical listener will be drawn in, never more so than on Antony and the Johnsons’ tearful rendition of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which is sure to leave most fans completely floored. Like Dylan himself, I’m Not There might not be for everyone, but everyone should at least respect its power.
-CH
Christopher O’Riley, True Love Waits
Christopher O’Riley is the kind of guy that should, for all intents and purposes, be a highfalutin douchenozzle. He takes Radiohead songs, deconstructs them, and performs reinvented versions of them on the piano, but the reasons for which he does it, and he is both transparent about this in interviews and it comes across clearly in his work, is very simple. He does it because he loves the music – straight and simple. For a neo-classical player with enough instrumental proficiency to make most hipster synth twiddlers weep in a corner, he’s refreshingly joyous in his style, even when it’s the daunting largesse of the Radiohead catalog – a band that is basically just a pop group, though they’re often mistaken as some kind of genre-less intellectual art collective. So True Love Waits, O’Riley’s collection of his favorite Yorke and co. tracks as redone by him with only a piano, is perfect for both the casual admirer (“Paranoid Android”) and the hardcore b-side collector (the title track).
Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks
Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks doesn’t really have much of a reason to exist, but I’m sure glad it does. The eponymous educational animated series from the 70s made a brief resurgence in the 90s, when I became familiar with it, but surely not enough to merit bringing together the likes of Pavement and The Lemonheads (amongst others) to cover/reimagine the songs as 90s alt-rock jingles. And yet, before it became common place for indie bands to half-ironically/half-sincerely cover cutesy pop songs, Atlantic effing Records may have started the trend, suggesting that perhaps our mid-00s obsession/frustration with the notion of “guilty pleasure” had a quiet predecessor all along. But as always, there’s not much to feel guilty about. They’re not songs that will redefine your life and they’re not essential covers that the diehard Blind Melon or Better Than Ezra fan (if the latter exists) positutely need to be aware of, but hell if I won’t someday play it for my future son or daughter in hopes that they learn about adverbs with Buffalo Tom’s help in advance of their elementary school lessons.
-CP