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Covers Good and Bad


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image.jpeg.775094f2f4486b8b8ccaf233a942c262.jpeg
 

The story behind The Who's Who's Next album artwork:

How a rubbish dump in County Durham provided the backdrop to The Who's iconic album sleeve.

Up there among the elite British rock albums, The Who’s Who’s Next was not only a triumphant follow-up to Tommy, but also touched by the hand of Lady Luck – and that’s never more true than with the way the cover concept came together.

“I was working with Pete Townshend on his Lifehouse project, which was an ambitious concept based on a futuristic era when people got their entertainment through being strapped into special suits,” recalls Ethan Russell, the American photographer who took the album’s iconic cover shot. “As far as I understand it, a lot of the songs on Who’s Next were originally intended for that record [Lifehouse]. Anyway, the band had virtually finished Who’s Next, but still didn’t have a clue about what to do about the cover.”  It was at this point that fate smiled benevolently.”

“We were driving back through [County Durham] from a gig one night, doing about 110 miles per hour down the motorway – which freaked me out. Pete was driving, and he asked me whether I had any ideas for the sleeve. Then suddenly, we passed these three or four pillars on the landscape.

They were gone in a flash, but I said to him that they might make an interesting backdrop for a photo shoot. That was it. Before I knew what had happened, Pete had swung the car back around a roundabout and was heading back to the spot, followed by three other vehicles carrying the rest of the band.

Without any hesitation, the four Who members gathered around one of the mysterious objects, and Russell started shooting.

“We did a lot of different poses, including some based on the 2001: A Space Odyssey idea of the apes gathering around the black obelisk. Then Pete started to piss on it, and I went with the flow, as it were. The others also tried to take Pete’s lead, but couldn’t actually do it. It was all a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

They poured some rainwater on the pillar to achieve a similar effect.

Russell admits that he didn’t exactly have his finger on the motor drive, and took only a few shots. But 24 hours later, one of his photos had been turned into the cover we know today.

“The odd thing is that it was only later on that I found out what those pillars were used for: to keep waste in place. It was a dumping ground for rubbish.”

Russell is the only man to have worked on covers for the Brit ‘big three’: The Who, The Rolling Stones (Through The Past Darkly) and The Beatles (Let It Be).“

Edited by Cairn Horn88
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10 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

That sax player is absolutely legit.  The guy on guitar doesn't suck either.

The whole damned thing for me.  That vibe and her voice and use of Portuguese accent interwoven with English, the dude putting down the Brazilian dance steps, all of it.
 

Not exactly hard on the eyes either.

Edited by Cajun
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I may have told this story before. I did a bunch of open mics a while back. You see a lot of things at open mics. Spoken word poetry is always a hit.

What’s not a hit is a guy singing the disturbed version (all growly and shit) of that song a cappella and missing pretty much every note. Yikes. True story.

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Regarding that Disturbed cover of S&G…

First of all, Disturbed gets a lot of shit. I get it. But I’m also big on taking bands for what they are. Sometimes I want a prime ribeye and sometimes I want a stadium burger. They both have their place. I’m the guy who has paid to see Nickelback more than once for fucks sake.

Dave Draiman can fucking sing. I’d love to be able to sing like that. And Dan Donegan is a serviceable if not damn good hard rock guitar player. I’ve seen them a couple of times.

I saw them not long after they released this cover. You know how you meet people at concerts who open up to you in unusual ways? My favorites were the girls I met at a Staind/Nickelback show. They were annoyed that they couldn’t get backstage. “I told the security man that we suck dick and everything!” Bless her heart.

Anyway, at this Disturbed show I ended up next to a young woman who had received a cancer diagnosis sometime before. Disturbed was her favorite band and she didn’t even know if she would live to see them live. She loved that cover of Sound of Silence and told me that she really hoped they played it. When they finally did, and with the stage set ablaze (I seriously thought they had an accident with the pyro but it was part of the show) she cheered in pure joy as tears poured down her face. It was dusty as all fuck.

I’m cool with a world with Disturbed in it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Nice voice.  Kinda between Stevie & Miley.  Apparently she's been around a while, I don't recall hearing her though.

Lissie is terrific. Her voice is something you just want to live in. So comforting.

Check out Catching a Tiger. It’s her first full length. She also does a ton of covers. Not Cat Power levels but a lot.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Rather than continuing to pollute the Hall VS Oates thread, I thought I'd put this here.  Not TECHNICALLY a cover, since it's Glenn Tilbrook, but screw it, this is my favorite song of the rock/pop era, and I just love hearing it.  I can't get YouTube to copy at a specific time, so scroll forward to ~ 2 minutes to avoid the cooking talk.

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
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OK, I'm not expecting everyone to buy this as a "good" cover, but in my mind it's fantastic.  It's Jeff Tweedy (Son Volt & Wilco) and his sons covering The Replacements' "Swingin' Party".  The vocals from his son Sam are so stylistically similar to Jeff's.  Wow.  And the way he looks WAY past the camera into the distance as he sings, just like his dad.

DNA, how does it work?

 

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
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  • 3 months later...

I like this take on the Jackson Browne classic by Bob Schneider.  Percussion is by Dony Wynn, longtime drummer for Robert Palmer.  It was his idea to do the song in a more melancholy style and Bob agreed.

 

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Posted (edited)

I'll need a judgment as to whether this counts since Terry Hall (RIP) co-wrote the song with Jane Wiedlin, but I've always liked this version better...it was released like 1.5 years after the Go-Go's version. 

 

Edited by DixonHur
RIP for Terry
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