Under the Covers

It's an excellent week for interesting cover songs. I don't know what it is, but there's something fascinating about hearing musicians reinterpret songs they've admired.

First and foremost there's the highly-anticipated compilation Guilt by Association where uber-indie rockers cover their guilty pleasures. I am absolutely enthralled with Petra Haden's a capella cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." Check it out at the album's MySpace page, along with two other tracks. There's a release date of Sept. 4 - I can't wait!

Then check these Yahoo! videos, where pop stars cover other pop stars' pop songs. Some of them are a bit safe, but I particularly enjoyed Natasha Bedingfield's cover of Maroon5's "This Love" - I have always loved the song and I like the stripped-down down of just Bedingfield's jazzy voice and an acoustic guitar.

Inspired by

I was attending Fleetwood Mac shows in utero, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that I am a huge Mac fan to this day.

Browsing around Amazon.com today, I noticed a cool feature on their music pages - Music You Should Hear, as recommended by other famous musicians. Basically, it's an artist's personal list of the music that has influenced them the most.

Fleetwood Mac lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is one of the featured artists, and his list is surprisingly eclectic, ranging from Chuck Berry to Eminem, and each selection features a very literate and thoughtful examination of that artist's place in the rock lexicon.

As always when I read a musician's list of favorites, I had more than a few moments of "I thought I was the only one!" The Drifters' "Save the Last Dance for Me," for instance, has always been a favorite of mine, even before I read, via LB, that its author was wheelchair-bound. (How unbelievably heartbreaking?)

After reading a recent Dave Barry column extolling the virtues of garage-rock paragon "Louie Louie," I wasn't surprised to see it make his list. And I am definitely in the camp that thinks that the late Beach Boys are VASTLY underrated, so I couldn't agree more with his assessment of "Surf's Up" as a piece of musical genius.

But the happiest moment for me was seeing my touchstone album, Joni Mitchell's Blue, listed as one of Buckingham's influences: "Joni Mitchell's genius was never more clear to me than on the album Blue," he says.

Other artists to compile lists include Elvis Costello, ">Rufus Wainwright, Patti Labelle , Mavis Staples and Maroon5.