Eli Young Band's Latest SingleI’ve been vaguely aware of the Eli Young Band’s existence for a while now, but have never really been compelled to seek them out until I spotted their latest entry on the Billboard country charts – a song called “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”. I recognized the title of the song from a song recorded by singer-songwriter Will Hoge a couple of years ago for his album The Wreakage. Could it be the same song? It sure is!
And it’s a great one. Hoge’s song about persevering in a dream – specifically the dream of making it big (or even just making a living) as a musician – deserved to be a bigger radio hit than it was. Had it come out during the late-90s Wallflowers-Counting Crows-Tonic-Matchbox Twenty moment, it just might have been.
Some of the Hoge fans commenting on the Eli Young video have been less than charitable, but I think it’s great that this song is finally a hit for someone. It’s reaching more people than it ever would have otherwise, and not only will the song have a longer “life expectancy” as a result, but it will also inevitably introduce more people to Hoge’s original, and by extension, his whole body of work. Last year, Hoge released his seventh studio album called… Number Seven. Here’s his latest single: “When I Get My Wings.”
The Postelles ''Summer Undercovers''The Postelles are one of my favorite new bands – a New York City quartet who play great little three minute rock ‘n’ roll tunes that sound like they were made to be heard on 45s. They have all the big beats and melodic guitar lines of a Ventures instrumental, circa ’63; and in lead singer Daniel Balk’s vocals, all the boyish sweetness and vulnerability of the 1910 Fruitgum Co., that illustrious Kama Sutra Records bubblegum group who had a huge hit in ’68 with a song called “1,2,3, Red Light”. The latest single by The Postelles is called “123 Stop”. I don’t think that’s purely coincidental.
Just weeks after the long-anticipated release of The Postelles’ self-titled debut album, the band has released a new EP called “Summer Undercovers” for free download via their website. And it’s exactly what the title would suggest: four covers that together sound like a ten-minute day at the beach with Frankie and Annette(‘s grandkids).
It starts with a surfed-up version of The Smiths’ “Ask”, a song that Morrissey first sang in a languid moan 25 years ago (probably before these guys were born) – spending warm summer days indoors writing frightening verse to a bucktoothed girl in Luxembourg. The Postelles play it like a teen idol love letter, and follow it up with an appropriately rawkin’ take on Joe Jones’ (by way of The Rivieras) “California Sun” (an actual surf-rock classic), and UK pub-rocker Wreckless Eric’s yearning “Whole Wild World”. Capping it all off is a live version of The Ramones’ “Beat on the Brat”. Not only is it great to hear these songs given such a fresh treatment, it’s a nice taste of what the band does on their originals, which sound like covers of classic surf-bubblegum-punk-new-wave songs from an alternate universe.
When I was growing up, cover songs were usually by contemporary artists doing remakes of songs that were 15 or 20 years old: Phil Collins singing the Supremes, Club Nouveau singing Bill Withers, Joan Jett singing Tommy James and the Shondells. But back in the 50s and 60s, it wasn’t that unusual for multiple versions of the same song to compete for the same sales and airplay. This was especially true in the 50s when record labels would rush out “white” versions of R&B singles, like Pat Boone singing Fats Domino, or when any number of popular crooners would rush out singles of the latest Broadway hits. In 1955 alone, three different versions of “Unchained Melody” hit the top 10 and a fourth made it to #29.
Ingrid Michaelson’s ”Parachute”But even in the 60s when singles were still the dominant force in pop music, you could hear multiple versions of the same song becoming hits right on top of each other. Less than a year after Gladys Knight and the Pips scored what was then their biggest pop hit “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” – it went all the way to #2 – Marvin Gaye took his own very different version of the same song all the way to #1.
Cheryl Cole’s ”Parachute”But as albums and singer-songwriters became more popular in the late 60s and early 70s, it became a mark of artistic legitimacy to record original songs, to steer clear of covers. Now that singles are back, thanks to digital downloads; and now that anybody – regardless of talent level – can reach a huge internet audience via YouTube – “instant covers” are becoming more popular. So, with apologies to Joan Rivers and her Fashion Police, I’m introducing a new series here called “Bitch Stole My Look – Song Edition”, where two new versions of the same new song take each other on in a blogospheric cage match.
First up is a song called “Parachute”. The song was written and demoed by quirky indie-pop songstress Ingrid Michaelson during sessions for her excellent 2009 album Everybody, but for whatever reason, it was determined that the song didn’t really fit on the album. Then late last year, the British pop starlet Cheryl Cole, formerly of the girl group Girls Aloud, got her hands on it and included a cover of it on her will.i.am-produced debut solo album 3 Words. In March of this year, it was released as a single and went Top 10 in the UK. Here’s Cheryl’s take on it:
Cheryl Cole “Parachute”
Last month, Ingrid Michaelson released a downloadable single of her own version of the song, and put out a pretty awesome video to go with it. Here’s Ingrid:
Ingrid Michaelson “Parachute”
Frankly, I love both versions of this song almost equally. Cheryl Cole’s is obviously the slicker version, but I love its sensuality and heightened sense of romance and drama. The vocal arrangements on Michaelson’s are a lot more interesting though and especially coming after her more mainstream sounding album Everybody, it’s a sweet and much more upbeat (to both Cole’s version of “Parachute” and the rest of Michaelson’s album) reminder of the quirky adorability of her first hit “The Way I Am”. I’m split on this one. Ingrid Michaelson v. Cheryl Cole goes into overtime.
