venta

It's Friday, it's about 3 o'clock. It's time to go underneath the covers (with the lights out).

I always recommend listening to a cover version without knowing what or who it is, so click on the link before reading ahead...

Today's cover version [link expired]

That was The Lemonheads covering Mrs. Robinson, originally by Simon & Garfunkel.

I feel like this one is something of a cheat, because surely everyone on the planet already knows this cover. However, I was having a vaguely nostaligic fit earlier in the week.

Its a Shame About Ray by the Lemonheads is one of those albums which seems to have crystallized perfectly, capturing a moment in time. To me, it will always be what sixth form sounded like.

Listening to it now, it's still interesting. Of the thirteen songs on it, only three break the three-minute barrier (so if you don't like it, at least it's over quickly). It doesn't go in for fancy effects, or extended solos, or clever lyrics. It gets its guitar out, whops through the songs, and tidies itself away with a great cover. More albums would do well to emulate it.

I think this is the first cover I heard in the "take a quiet/slow song and thrash through it" genre; and it's one of the very few which bear repeat listenings. Plenty of bands since (and, very probably, before) have stormed noisily through bits of gentle 60s pop in a way which would have been ok for a live one-off, but doesn't seem worthwhile enough to record; maybe it's just nostalgia which endears this particular one to me.