Saturday, June 03, 2006
sunflower -low
sunflower (low cover) -real live tigers
A little something about me: I'm a sucker for covers. I'm especially a sucker for offbeat covers of really good songs, which is why I love the Real Live Tigers version of Low's "Sunflower". The best thing about it is that it doesn't play the age old covers game of trite genre-inversion. The original "Sunfower" is hushed and shadowy, and so, in keeping with that classic formula, the most logical cover of the song would be its antithesis: loud and expeditious, with cymbals and horns and a frantic cowbell or something. But Real Live Tigers avoids the temptation to capitalize on the easy irony, and instead the result is even slower and softer than the original. I first listened to this song on a Sunday afternoon, when the sun was impenetrable and the air was warm and humid and the ground was covered in dandelions. Or maybe it didn't happen that way, but I wish it had, because I think that would have been perfect.
buy Things We Lost in the Fire by Low here.
buy Hospital Songs by Real Live Tigers here (does not feature "Sunflower").
the cn tower belongs to the dead -final fantasy
adventure.exe -final fantasy
Speaking of offbeat covers of really good songs, I was first introduced to Final Fantasy through a cover of Joanna Newsom's "Peach, Plum, Pear". And I've never turned back. These songs are both from his (Owen Pallett's) 2005 album Has a Good Home. They're the kind of songs that lack immediacy but that creep up on you after three, five, eight listens, and they eventually knock you on your ass saying, How come I didn't hear this the first time around? Give them more than one try. You'll be glad you did.
buy Has a Good Home by Final Fantasy here.
preorder He Poos Clouds by Final Fantasy here.
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Meagan,
You are absolutely amazing--absolutely and utterly, and I need to supplant my meagre folk-sy know how with your musical glory, and now have a convenient and visually astounding way to do it!
Oh! Dear me! I want one of these things, and am in the process of starting up a similar-but-unrelated project involving Youth Movements, etc., and perhaps we can be banner buddies when the time of my unveiling arrives!
Until then, rest assured--you are going to be famous, kid!
Love,
Jessi-from-Ohio
(who once paraded under the moniker "cheesyjessi" and wrote terrible things about the lives beyond the words)