How to play a good cover at Orkney Bands

How to play a good cover

Published by Matthias August 18th, 2006 in Editorial.

With Battle of the Bands mere weeks away, and a well advised ‘one cover’ rule in place, I was thinking about what makes a good cover. The mistake that pub bands seem to make again and again is trying to replicate tunes rather than pay homage to them. A good cover version should bounce away from the original, choosing a tangent that gives the song a new edge.

There’s lots of reasons that bands choose to cover other peoples songs. In the case of Battle of the Bands, it’s a good chance to let the audience know what the band is about and where they are coming from, and get everyone into the set. At Magfest, Sandi Thom’s cover of ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley was very well received and I think it added something to her performance. She played it as her encore and it was interesting to hear a completely back to basics lo-fi version of the tune. It was also a cheeky nod of respect, as she had knocked their song off the top of the charts with ‘punk rocker’ the week before. For your listening pleasure, here’s links to 6 other covers of Crazy in different styles. Let us know which one you think is most successful.

6 Covers of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley from… The Raconteurs & The Kooks & Nelly Furtado
Ray Lomontagne & Poingly & The Twilight Sisters

Lily Allen has done a couple of good covers on the radio that I thought were worth a mention as she does them in a slightly different style to her own. It’s interesting to hear her singing straight, without the cheeky accent or the ‘a bit out of tune but it’s on purpose’ thing she likes to do.

Lily Allen Covers: Naive (Kooks) & Oh My God (Kaiser Chiefs)

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