“Cactus”
by Glen Hansard (originally by The Pixies)
from the Acoustic Lakeside Festival, Austria
2012
Ok, I’m breaking convention a little here, since I posted a different cover version of this last week, but the Wikipedia page for the song mentioned that Glen Hansard and The Frames had covered it in concert once, so I went on a search, and found this. I said I didn’t love the Bowie version, but this version is fantastic, so I thought it deserved its own post.
“Cactus”
by David Bowie (originally by The Pixies)
from the album Heathen
2002
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I can’t claim to have ever gotten too into Bowie’s music, but there are certainly standouts, and more than anything, I think he’s kind of the coolest. The coolest what? Whatever. Just definitely one of the coolest.
“3 Is A Magic Number”
by Blind Melon (originally by School House Rock!)
from the album School House Rock! Rocks
1996
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I found this track on a CMJ magazine sampler CD sometime in 1996. A few years later I totally got into MiniDiscs and transferred the tracks I really liked from those sampler CDs to MDs. And then recently when I was moving down to Austin, I transferred those MD mix discs into iTunes. This song has survived three generations of media, and rightfully so. It’s fun, magical little tune and serves as double nostalgia: for Blind Melon and for School House Rock!
“Happiness is a Warm Gun”
by The Breeders (originally by The Beatles)
from the album Pod
1990
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I’m already a day late, and with 11 minutes to spare, nearly two days, so I’ll follow Lance’s lead and go with one where I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I only knew this cover version for a long time before I ever heard the original.
“Dead Souls”
by Nine Inch Nails (originally by Joy Division)
from The Crow Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
1995
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There’s been a definite pattern with my choice of cover songs lately, in that I fell in love with the cover version long before I heard the original. I don’t want to disappoint my loyal fan by diverging from this path so I present “Dead Souls” as performed by Nine Inch Nails.
“Love Hurts”
by Kim Deal and Robert Pollard (originally by The Everly Brothers)
from the album Love and a .45
1994
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I feel grossly uninformed, but until a week or two ago, I didn’t know anything about this song. It’s another one I randomly came across at some point and downloaded strictly because of Kim Deal (I never got into GBV). I was actually going to post it at the end of last month for #AprilDuets, but then when I started looking into it, i realized how much history the song had.
“Head On”
by the Pixies (originally by The Jesus and Mary Chain)
from the album Trompe Le Monde
1991 4AD
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Confession time: I got into the Pixies really late in the game. I was familiar with them from watching 120 Minutes but for some reason nothing really stuck with me at the time. I now consider them one of my all-time favorite bands, but I can’t cop to being there at the beginning like most of my other friends. Why did I take so long for me to catch on? I’m not sure, but when it did, it stuck. Hard.
“Duck Tales” Theme Song
by Scott Bradlee’s Saturday Morning Slow Jams
from the album Scott Bradlee’s Saturday Morning Slow Jams
2013
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It’s entirely a coincidence that Lance and I are both posting cartoon covers today. Sometimes we’re eerily in sync, and I highly doubt there will be a recurrence of this type of cover. I wasn’t even going to save this for #CoverFriday and was going to post it when it first made the rounds a few days ago, but was lazy.
“Fat Albert” Theme Song
by Dig (originally by Fat Albert)
from the album Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits
1995
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Dig had an alterna hit of some kind in the 90s but hell if I can remember what it was. And I pretty much only watched Fat Albert when I stumbled across it. So you wouldn’t think there would be much to draw me towards this cover by a mediocre band of a mediocre cartoon theme song but there’s something about this track that just kind rocks.
“Easy”
by Faith No More (originally by The Commodores)
from the “I’m Easy/Be Aggressive” double A-side
1992 Slash Records
Buy the single on Amazon
Again, this one of those covers that I stumbled across before I had ever heard the original. Thus – in my mind – it’s the superior version. This track kind of fits into the karaoke theme as well… I’m constantly on the hunt for the Mike Patton-pitched version.