Tag: 2000s

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Tunes

100 best covers: #31 A.C. Newman “Take on me”

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If you’ve been following along with this list, as I know a bunch of you might be, you’d know that I came across a bunch of the covers on this list by way of compilation albums, many of which placed focus on cover songs. I had a bunch of these on my CD shelves before I started culling my collection and a good portion of them were tracked down in the mid- to late- 2000s. I was definitely on a cover kick in those days. So that would explain why I had a disc purchased from a Starbucks location on my shelves, an impulse buy*, after examining the track listing.

Starbucks actually produced a whole series of these “Sweetheart” compilations from the mid-2000s to the mid-2010s. Often released just in time for Valentine’s Day on certain years, they were billed as collections of their “favourite artists” covering their own personal “favourite love songs”. The only one I bought (or even heard) was released in 2009 and was listened to in full only once or twice, though I did rip it to mp3 and keep it for the playback of certain songs that tickled my fancy.

The cover of A-Ha’s ubiquitous 80s classic “Take on me” by The New Pornographers’ frontman Carl Newman (aka A.C. Newman) was one of these.

The original version got a passing mention on these pages a couple of months ago when another single from that massive debut album, “Hunting high and low”, appeared on my Eighties best 100 list. And well, I would say that “Take on me” doesn’t really need any further introduction to anyone with a passing knowledge 80s New Wave. So I won’t go much further into the magnificent, synth pop epic A-Ha number here.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Newman likely recorded this cover around the same time and maybe during the same sessions in which he recorded his second solo album, “Get guilty”. It feels like it was recorded as a shadowy, half-remembered dream of the original. Newman strumming and banging away on his acoustic and singing into his mike, a mirror, his teenaged self smiling back at himself, singing a song he knew better than the backs of both hands, doing his best impression of Morton Harket, belting out those proclamations of love. He surrounds himself with smoky synth washes and every once in a while, that inescapable arpeggiating melody peeks out.

Such a fantastic cover. It’s very different but pays homage to the original, not trying to surpass it but to lift it up closer to the light. It’s hard to call it better but I can’t help but prefer it.

Cover:

Original:

 

*Yeah, those impulse racks do work on suckers like me.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Clientele “Bonfires on the heath”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Clientele
Album Title: Bonfires on the heath
Year released: 2009
Year reissued: 2017
Details: standard black vinyl

The skinny: Happy new year everyone! I’m starting off my blogging year by returning to the series I started back in November, sharing the copies in my vinyl collection of The Clientele’s LPs. Originally released in 2009, “Bonfires on the heath” was the London-based dream pop quartet’s 5th studio album. It continued moseying on down the beautiful road they’d been thus far paving, mixing jangly atmospherics with hazy, technicolour psychedelics. I purchased this bare-bones Merge records reissue back in 2017 from Amazon’s UK platform*, a few weeks after I ordered the 10th anniversary reissue of The Clientele’s previous album. “Bonfires” is a total mood record, one that I am always ready to face.

Standout track: “Bonfires on the heath”

*Something I was doing with regularity back in those days because they had access to records more in line with my tastes and it was still relatively affordable, even with the shipping across the ocean and the exchange rate.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #6 Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros “Coma girl”

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Where were you when you first heard that OJ was acquitted? When the challenger shuttle exploded? When Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use? When the first plane crashed into the World Trade Centre?

History is filled with these big transcendental moments that ‘everyone’ vividly remembers and inevitably remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about it, saw it on television, etc. Similarly big musical history moments include the Milli Vanilli lip synch debacle, Michael Jackson and the dangling baby, and of course all those iconic musician deaths, like Kurt Cobain’s overdose and John Lennon’s murder. For me, the heart attack death of Joe Strummer could also be categorized as one of these moments.

On December 23rd, 2002, twenty-three years ago today, I was working a shift at my call centre job. I had gotten special permission to work out of the Toronto call centre, something I would do for a couple of years after that because it allowed Victoria and I to make the trip down from Ottawa a few days before Christmas and spend more time with her mother. That first Monday I was sat at an empty cubicle in a quad of highly seasoned call centre agents and the mood was jovial and festive. There were treats and laughter and music and I was not at all excluded from the in-between call festivities. Luckily for me, my neighbour had her radio station tuned EDGE 102, the modern rock station I used to tune in to before moving to Ottawa, which meant a more than tolerable soundtrack. At some point during the Dean Blundell morning show, the news was shared about Joe Strummer’s death the day before and they followed it by playing “London calling”.

At that time, I was still only a casual Clash fan, really only knowing the hits, but I definitely knew who Strummer was, what he stood for, and his importance to not just to alternative rock, but all of rock history. And I couldn’t help but feel some sadness at knowing the punk rock icon was no longer with us.

A handful of years later, I had changed jobs for better pay and for work more in line with my writing background. I had also become much more versed in The Clash’s back catalogue but hadn’t really delved into Strummer’s solo work, nor his material recorded with his new band, The Mescaleros. One of my new work colleagues, Ian, a fellow music nerd who had grown up in the Montreal punk and record store scene, was really keen to change this. He loaned me his CD copy of “Streetcore”, which, he explained, was the final album by Joe Strummer and his Messcaleros. It was the album Strummer was working on when he died and was released posthumously the following year. I listened to it a couple of times through at work before bringing it home to rip myself a copy. Yeah, I loved it, just like Ian knew I would.

“And the rain came in from the wide blue yonder
I thought you and me might wander
Oh, Coma Girl and the excitement gang
Mona Lisa on a motorcycle gang”

“Coma girl” starts off the album with a heart racing guitar line and Strummer’s rough-hewn vocals but when the bopping and jiving bass line pops, you know it’s not going to be just a straightforward rock song. Indeed, Strummer’s love for ska and reggae shines brightly through on this one. It’s full of joy and sunshine. The girl of the title is cool for cats, hanging tough at a music festival and taking it all in, said to be based on Strummer’s daughter, who at times joined him on tour. Even if it’s not true, it’s a compelling image to go along with an instantly replayable and relatable track. So effortlessly good.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.