Under the Covers
I have overcome the obstacle life laid before me. I bought the music issue of The Believer, only to discover, too late, that someone had already taken the CD. I’ve got my own copy now, and you probably should get one for yourself.
I get a weird excitement listening to artists I don’t know covering other artists I don’t know. When I’m enjoying a song, I can’t stop wondering if it is the song itself I like or something brought to the table by the performer. First I heard:
Cocorosie - Ohio (Damien Jurado)
The lowest of lo-fi recordings, almost, there. It’s practically sub-fi. Or anti-fi. But something about the arrangement, chilling yet poppy, had its hooks in me. Then I heard:
And it is indeed a superb song. Jurado, one of those artists I’ve always read about and never explored, also released a record of found recordings, and it seems that the CocoRosie cover is a sort of tribute to that as well.
It’s, um, interesting that the bubble of scenesterism that surrounds the Believer, keeping some in and others away regardless of the actual merits of the document itself, lead to things like this ILM thread, in which hundreds of comments are made while avoiding the idea of discussing the music itself.
