Angus & Julia Stone are a brother and sister from Australia. They’ve been a band since 2005 & have a bevy of great songs.
“Stranger”:
“And The Boys”:
Angus & Julia also have solo albums out.
Author: aftertheshow (Page 155 of 192)
Most covers stay pretty true to the original song. It’s easy to recognize them as covers just by listening.
Some covers, though, are completely unrecognizable from their original songs, like Julia Stone’s cover of “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease and 67 Special’s cover of “Scar” by Missy Higgins:
“You’re The One That I Want”:
“Scar”:
But sometimes figuring out what qualifies as a cover can be harder. What about when a singer plays his song with a different band? Is it simply the same song and not a cover, or is it a totally new composition, or a semi-cover?
Two good examples of this murky cover definition are when Jenny Lewis played a song from her solo album with Rilo Kiley. The vocals were the same, but the music was different, and when Nina from Girl in a Coma played her song “Smart” with Joseph from Deadbeat Darling, turning the song into a duet:
“Rise Up With Fists”:
“Smart”:
There’s a fine line — An artist should make a cover her own, injecting her own fingerprint onto it, but if a cover is so drastically different from the original that it loses/ignores the melody, that’s not satisfying for the listener.
I got to the Studio @ Webster Hall early on Friday to catch The Jim Ivins Band open for Rooney’s Robert Schwartzman.
The band started strong with “Run” — very catchy chorus. Most of their songs sound like late 90s/early 2000s power pop.
The sound was good and full, but 5 people made the stage too crowded. I think they would’ve been tighter with 3 or 4 band members, ditching the extraneous Korg keyboard.
I’d be interested in hearing some of these songs stripped down/acoustic.
“Rollercoaster” was a highlight, and they ended their set with “Everything We Wanted.”
What are other examples of outsider art besides The Shaggs?
Mrs. Miller was a housewife who sold lots of records in the 1960s because of how bad a singer she was. The original William Hung of American Idol fame:
Mrs. Miller’s cover of “A Hard Day’s Night” — the singing is completely out of time with the music, as you’ll hear:
“James” by Brooklyn-based band Ex Cops is the best new song I’ve heard in a while.
The verses are so strong and catchy.
Outsider art describes artwork created by artists who live outside the boundaries of official culture. Outsider artists have limited or no contact with mainstream art institutions.
Specifically, outsider music refers to songs by musicians who don’t belong to the commercial music industry. These songs often ignore standard compositional conventions (either deliberately or because the musician is untrained).
The Shaggs, formed in 1968 in rural New Hampshire, are an example of outsider music. The band was comprised of three sisters whose father, Austin Wiggin, believed that his daughters were called to create a band.
The Shaggs’ music can be pretty difficult to listen to, especially because the drums are not in time with the guitar and everything is out-of-tune: