Music played a big part in Big Little Lies season 1. And in one of the pivotal moments of the show, Adam Scott’s character Ed Mackenzie sang a moving rendition of Elvis’s “The Wonder of You” during the finale’s talent show. However, “The Wonder of You” was actually sung by a singer named Conor O’Brien. O’Brien is also the lead singer of an Irish band called The Villagers.
Through her own Milk! Records, Courtney Barnett has released a majority of her records, including last year’s Tell Me How You Really Feel. Now, the Aussie-based label is putting out Milk on Milk, a new compilation album which tasks its artists to cover one another.
Due out November 15th, the collection consists of nine tracks, and one of those is Barnett’s take on the 2018 Loose Tooth single “Keep On”. Barnett’s rendition has a ramshackle yet warm quality to it, not unlike her own original material.
This year Lucy Dacus is working on a singles series entitled 2019 where she will release seven songs in 2019, each timed to a different holiday. It’ll be a mix of covers and originals. Now she has shared another installment, a cover of Phil Collins’ 1981 classic “In the Air Tonight” timed to Halloween. She has also confirmed the details of the 2019 EP, which is due out November 8.
In Closer To Grey, Chromatics new album, features all new original material plus two covers. One of them is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” which opens the album and the band transforms the evergreen acoustic hymn into an eerie, lonely creep through dark streets in the small hours.
Lana Del Rey has covered Donovan’s 1966 classic “Season of the Witch” for the trailer of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a new film directed by André Øvredal and produced by Guillermo del Toro.
“While Lana Del Rey arguably grabs more headlines these days as a glamor-girl, it can be easy to forget that the songstress became famous for her songs.Mark Roberts, owner and co-founder of Stars & Letters Records, takes on Lana Del Rey’s ‘Gods & Monsters’ with his flourishing project We Are Temporary and in one fell swoop, he reminds us of the musical wanderlust that Lana Del Rey was originally known for.
Everything about We Are Temporary speaks to the dark and sultry with waves of light—a polarity that you only find in real, true, striking beauty and that makes the project so intriguing. This cover is no different; there’s a pronounced sense of right and wrong, light and dark, truth and lies beneath the vocals that takes the essence of the original in a completely different direction.
Influenced by everything from dream pop to goth to ambient sound, Roberts takes Lana Del Rey’s Gods & Monsters from something delicate and thinly veiled and turns it into something significantly more eerie, futuristic and industrial.”
A year ago, Tropical Fuck Storm have teased fans with an acerbic drip-feed of 7” singles, cover tracks and unhinged music videos, culminating in their recently released debut album A Laughing Death in Meatspace. TFS is a phoenix of sorts; rising from the ashes of The Drones to form a supergroup consisting of Gareth Liddiard (The Drones), Fiona Kitschin (The Drones), Erica Dunn (Mod Con, Harmony) and Lauren Hammel (High Tension).
One of this covers is Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’. With tongues firmly in cheeks, ‘Stayin’ Alive’ works as a cheeky reflection of the internet’s world wide wreckage depicted in ‘Rubber Bullies’ as the embattled narrator of ‘Stayin’ Alive’ struggles to find purpose in a world constantly tasered by a digital stream of moral pollution.
