(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 Smiths Album Title: The world won’t listen Year released: 1987 Year reissued: 2011 Details: Remastered, double LP, part of box set that includes booklet and poster
The skinny: Happy Sunday! Are you getting tired of seeing pictures of the pieces from this box set yet? Patience. Just a couple installments to go. This compilation, whose title is an expression of Morrissey’s frustration at the band’s lack of exposure, gathers together a bunch of the band’s singles and their b-sides, released between 1985 and 1987. As a record, it’s one that doesn’t see the platter often because of the compilation that was originally released a mere months after this one and that one will be featured next week. That other one is a big favourite of mine and the song featured below is one of only two songs from this one not available there.
Standout track: “The boy with the thorn in his side”
(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)
The Rural Alberta Advantage live at Dragonboat Festival, 2015
Artist: The Rural Alberta Advantage When: June 27th, 2015 Where: Ottawa Dragonboat Festival, Mooney’s Bay Park, Ottawa Context: It’s been almost six months since I’ve seen any live music and I’ve realized in the last couple of weeks that I’ve been (for want of a better term) seriously jonesing. Seriously. I’ve been habitually checking the concert listings, reading all the festival lineups as they are released, watching live videos on the YouTube, and I’ve even been finding myself wistfully flipping through photos of past shows that I’ve seen. And in so doing, I came across this series of pics that I snapped during a set by Toronto’s The Rural Alberta Advantage at Ottawa’s Dragonboat festival five years (!) ago. I’ve seen them a total of four times, each time was a riot, but this show was the last time I saw them. They were still touring their third album, “Mended with gold”, which like all their others, is energetic indie folk with a heavy percussion edge, this last provided by Energizer bunny drummer, Paul Banwatt, and bundle of dynamite, Amy Cole. She would actually leave the band the following year, to be temporarily replaced by a Robin Hatch, but is now back in the fold, and the word is there is new material in the works. Maybe I’ll see them a fifth time later this year. One can hope… Point of reference song: “Terrified”
Nils Edenloff of The Rural Alberta AdvantageAmy Cole of The Rural Alberta AdvantagePaul Banwatt of The Rural Alberta AdvantageAmy Cole and Paul Banwatt going all percussion-likeNils Edenloff rocking out
Leonard Cohen was a great songwriter. He was a poet that wrote poems and those poems became songs when he decided to sing them, instead of just read them aloud.
Of course, when you write excellent songs, you’ll have numerous other excellent bands and solo artists lining up to cover your work. And some of them might even transcend your original versions in popularity and commercial success. Such as it is with Leonard Cohen, who has been covered many times over, and even had just the one of his songs covered thousands of times (I’m sure you can guess of which song I speak). If you ask my wife, though, she’ll tell you that Mr. Cohen is tops on the list of artists that should never be covered and that no one can come close to touching his versions. Conversely, my friend Tim has said to me on more than one occasion that he likes Leonard Cohen’s songs, but only when someone else performs them.
And I’m pretty near certain that these words were first uttered by him whilst listening to the 1991 tribute album, “I’m your fan”. This excellent 18-song compilation was put together French music magazine, “Les Inrockuptibles”. The album’s title is a play on Cohen’s 1988 album, “I’m your man”, and its track listing included varied versions of Cohen tunes by artists such as Echo & The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch, House of Love, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Lloyd Cole, John Cale, James, R.E.M., and of course, this excellent cover by the Pixies.
Recorded in the same year as “Trompe le monde”, their final album before dissolution, the Pixies’ version of “I can’t forget” was unsurprisingly more upbeat and hard-hitting than the original. Indeed, it could almost be mistaken for one of their own tunes, if it had only been a bit more weird and off-kilter. Cohen’s original was recorded a mere three years earlier for the aforementioned album, “I’m your man”, and while all of its songs were great – classics now – it took me a while to get over its production and instrumentation, which were synth heavy and definitely of their time and place.
Sorry Victoria. I think I’d take the heavy guitars, faster rhythm, and Frank Black’s yelp and Kim Deal’s chiming backup over the easier listening marimba synth-programmed hangover, even if it does include Cohen’s inimitable, rich sing-speak vocals.
What about you? What are your thoughts?
Cover:
The original:
For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 