Depeche Mode

Shake The Disease – Hooverphonic

Some Velvet Morning – This was a song that was performed by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra sometime in the late 60′s. When listening to this psychedelic song, you can’t help but get mesmerized by Hazelwood’s country vocals. The video is pretty classic as well. I mean the guy is riding a horse on a beach with what appears to be wearing some type of futuristic garb for the time, and Nancy looked like she just floated down from freaking space. I’m wondering who can cover this song and bring the same level of mystery to it? That band would be Slowdive and the song is off their album Souvlaki, which was produced by Brian Eno. Another band that also did a cover of the song was Primal Scream with Kate Moss, but I wasn’t too keen on it.

Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra

Some Velvet Morning – Slowdive

Superstar – That’s right people your reading it correctly and there’s nothing wrong with your eyes. I know it was sung by The Carpenters, but you’re just lying to yourself if you can’t admit how good this song really is. It’s a prime example of a hopeless love song and has been used as a measuring stick for all the other love songs that came after it. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but I hope you get the point. In 1994 a tribute album called If I Were A Carpenter was released. From then on my senior year in high school was playing Sonic Youth’s cover of Superstar very loudly in my 92 Civic. It was okay though, because it was Sonic Youth. Fast forward 14 years later and it now shows up on Juno’s soundtrack. I guess it was a good cover then.

The Carpenters

Sonic Youth

Strangers In Paradise – Now there are many cover versions of this song and I can’t really tell you who the original singer was, but the more popular one would be Tony Bennett. The remake that I really like was Saint Etienne’s version of the popular tune. They added their groovy 60′s style to the song and made it just really chill, and of course Sarah Cracknell’s voice made it bliss.  I found a video of Tony Bennett singing Stranger In Paradise to a collage of Hedy Lamarr on YouTube as an example. Goodness gracious, actresses now can’t even hold a candle to the way these elegant beauties looked back then. I also was lucky to find the Saint Etienne version as well, but it’s not the actual video.

Tony Bennett

Saint Etienne

Well, there you have it. Those are some of my favorite covers that I truly appreciate, but I was thinking of doing a part 3 sometime later. I think I opened a can of worms with this topic and I certainly have more songs to discuss. Until then…