Music Recommendations

I'm always a sucker for Christmas music. On 3 or 4 occasions, I put together Christmas music CDs with covers and used them as Christmas cards.

We will be traveling this Christmas, Merry Christmas all.

I don't have time to post links, but my personal faves, from top of mind (I'll forget some):

Run-DMC - Christmas in Hollis
The entire Vince Guaraldi Trio Charlie Brown album
Sharon Jones and Dap Kings - Big Bulbs
Keith Richards' version of Run Run Rudolph (not that Berry's isn't also great)
No Doubt - Oi to the World
Elvis - Blue Christmas
Burl Ives - Holly Jolly Christmas
Bing & Bowie
John & Yoko - Happy Xmas
Bruce Springsteen Santa Claus is Coming to Town
A bunch of the Jackson 5 songs, probably also led by Coming to Town

My suggestions for someone building a Christmas music collection would be the Essential Now! compilation, the first Very Special Christmas, Charlie Brown, and on the Darlene Love note, the Phil Spector album. Maybe the Jackson 5 one too.

I'm guessing the majority won't get this:

www.facebook.com/bluegrasslife/videos/932517286797834

The majority, probably not since it was a country and western hit. I'm not even sure why I knew that song as a kid, along with 'They Call the Wind Mariah'. But I did like them both, I was into the Yardbirds pretty heavy.

So, the "Hey Joe" post made me think of an interesting twitter thread I saw a week or so ago. Think about the best cover songs you've heard. Some of my favorites in no particular order

Seether- Careless Whisper
Shinedown - Simple Man (I actually hate that I like this version better than the original, but I do)
Foo Fighters - Baker Street
Metallica - Turn the Page
Disturbed - Sound of Silence


Hmmm, clearly I have a theme going in that I apparently really dig a guitar-heavy version of a previously lighter song. In every one of those songs, I like the original pretty well too. Actually I have very wide ranging musical tastes. I like some of almost every genre, with the exception of Opera. I am not that crazy about most country music, but love certain artists that tend to be sorta pop-country-ish. I am probably most happy listening to classic rock stuff but I appreciate everything from hip-hop to jazz, to blues, to old school funk music, to metal, to grunge and it goes on and on.

I'd be interested to know what the gang here thinks are some of the best covers ever made. Whatcha got?

You had me (mostly) 'til this one. This would make a short list of my least favorite covers - none of the urgency or energy of the original. And the weaker faux-reggae arrangement only shifts the lyrics from wistfully loving (maybe lusting) to... just kinda sappy.


Anyway, the top of my list is probably Pearl Jam's version of Crazy Mary (which maybe people don't know is a Victoria Williams tune?). It's more accessible than the original, fits Eddie's voice, and it's one of their absolute best live tunes. PJ's ability to just break out covers in their live shows out of nowhere is one of the best things about them.

Johnny Cash's version of Nick Cave's The Mercy Seat always gets me. The arrangement is incredible, with those building piano bits. What's cool is that, in both the original and the cover, they both come off as unreliable narrators but in entirely different ways. Cave sounds kind of like a lunatic facing down doom who is wavering between denial and atonement, whereas Cash comes off as a half-sympathetic/half-dangerous old man. I don't know which I even like better, but the Cash version just so thoroughly sounds like a canon Johnny Cash song.

More stuff:
Tina Turner - Proud Mary
Stevie Wonder - We Can Work It Out
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night (Much stronger, in my opinion, than the sorta-overrated version they did of "The Man Who Sold the World" on the same MTV Unplugged show)
Andy Williams?/Nat King Cole?/Mark Lanegan? - Autumn Leaves (all three of these are amazing)
Pearl Jam (again) - Masters of War
Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower (Almost cliche to include this, it's like including "Mookie Betts" on your list of "Best 2018 Red Sox right fielders")
Zeppelin - When the Levee Breaks
Soundgarden - Come Together
Ryan Adams - Wonderwall
The Band - Atlantic City
Springsteen - The Weight

Yes, I did The Band covering Springsteen and Springsteen covering The Band. They're both great.

You guys are letting me down, 3 posts about it and you haven't mentioned the GOAT yet:



I absolutely love the lyrics in this song and I love how Buckley make them sound even more vengeful. The bit about his lady not caring about music is a terrifyingly accurate description of a love dying and it just sounds just broken, like you spent all those years talking about stuff you like and then you realize that your loved one doesn't give a sh*t. The part about the dude watching a beautiful woman bathing sound poetic and yet disturbing, it's like an incel reading Daffodils for the first time and grasping at a small moment of clarity. Then the girl messes up the narrator because of course she does. He has seen this room and he walked this floor and he lived alone before he knew her, he trusted someone and won't make that mistake again. Some weird sexual metaphors later and he recaps his experiences. He was scorned, betrayed and left alone. It's cold as hell, don't mistake it for the light of the lord, love hurts man!

And it sounds beautiful and haunting. It's such a great achievement.

Here is the entire Train Led Zeppelin II album:

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kRUeV9GUiUavFIC2oa2zuRJauG2qfIvqU

Really wish I could have seen it live because that's as close as you'll get at seeing Led Zeppelin play live.

I almost linked Coil's Tainted Love but that would be a bit of a downer, so I'll just add this instead:



Dude just has a beautiful voice. This song is completely corny and somehow the delivery is straight and professional. I love it.

Listening to the following lately:

Jazz albums - Trios by Carla Bley, Cross My Palm With Silver by Avishai Cohen, Lontano by Tomasz Stanko

Ambient - Endless Falls by Loscil, Dream time Return by Steve Roach, From Sleep by Max Richter, Mysterium and Universalis by Hammock

Dare accepted.  My fear of the Mongol hordes charging down my street in conquest somehow now seems more rational.  Thanks.

Jeff Beck was one of my early early favorites (The Yardbirds). After the Yards broke up, he formed the Jeff Beck group and found the perfect blues singer, Rod Stewart. They are going to do a reunion concert, some great music should come out of this:

theclassicrock.net/news/rod-stewart-and-jeff-beck-to-reunite-for-most-in-depth-concert-in-over-35-years/?fbclid=IwAR2DtByfgVDk6b1tysZonIHr0ICNB2e4tDBj0z_ZXOipSFSdR-IzAArrnl4