Notes

The Ramones hold the record for most covered albums.

The world of popular music can sometimes be very confusing.

Consider, for instance, the following three terms:

• Album cover
• Cover album
• Covered album

For those whose memories do not extend to the antediluvial era of the 12-inch vinyl record, an “album cover” was the decorated cardboard slipsleeve in which said plastic dinosaurs came packaged (and for which enterprising hippies often found alternative uses).  

“Cover album” is the term used to describe an album comprised of cover songs, like 2005’s ROCK SWINGS by Paul Anka, wherein the teen idol-turned-cabaret singer assayed alternative hits like Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (the latter of which had already received a lounge treatment eight years earlier when Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme reimagined it for the LOUNGE-A-PALOOZA cover album).

But today we are investigating the “covered album,” a relatively recent phenomenon, one that is closely related to the cover album… but takes the notion a step further. 

A covered album is what you get when an artist or group re-records an entire album from the past, and its ascent in recent years speaks to interesting trends growing in the world of pop music over the past three decades.

Before the rock era, nearly all recording singers and musicians were interpretive artists.  Performers rarely wrote their own material, instead mining the songbooks of writers like Cole Porter, Yip Harburg, Irving Berlin, Andy Razaf and the many tunesmiths tinkling and toiling on Tin Pan Alley.  But attitudes veered in the latter half of the 20th century, and especially during the 1960s and ’70s, it became a significant plus that performers and bands wrote their own material.

Then, in the 1980s, the new wave movement reinvigorated the interest in old songs.  The cover album (and its cousin, the tribute album) has become increasingly popular through the ensuing years until the present day, when it has achieved a nearly ridiculous ubiquity.  Nowadays, you can’t rifle through a CD bin without stumbling across a bluegrass tribute to Metallica or a string quartet tribute to Kiss.  For artists still interested in the act of interpretation (and perhaps fueled by nostalgia for the album in an age when music downloading has returned the individual song to its place as the currency franca of pop music), there was only one horizon left to conquer… the covered album.

Prompted by the recent release of NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE’S THE SEX PISTOLS by Artichoke, Craven has been thinking about the covered album recently.  Artichoke’s folksy take on the classic debut from the Sex Pistols marks the second time this particular LP has been covered, since the album was given a Near Eastern gloss in 2002 on NEVER MIND THE BHANGRA, HERE’S THE OPIUM JUKEBOX by the titularly cited Opium Jukebox, an outfit spearheaded by Martin Atkins, himself a former member of Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten’s other combo, Public Image Limited.

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS… is one of a few covered albums that actually name-drop the original band in the title.  Other examples include Claw Hammer’s reconstruction of Devo’s 1977 major label debut, Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO (featuring liner notes by chief spud Mark Mothersbaugh himself), and in 2005, former That Dog violinist Petra Haden joined with bassist Mike Watt (who rose to fame with the Minutemen) to cover THE WHO SELL OUT.

Some classic rock acts are popular enough to merit multiple covered albums.  One of the earliest covered albums came in 1988 when pseudo-fascists Laibach delivered their interpretation of the Beatles’ LET IT BE (which is the only time this album has been covered, although its title had been appropriated four years earlier by the Replacements).  Four years after Laibach’s Wagnerian take on the Fab Four, retro vocal group Big Daddy tackled SGT. PEPPER, the highlight of which is a cover of “A Day in the Life” in the style of Buddy Holly.

Bob Dylan has had two of his classic albums covered.  New York singer-songwriter Mary Lee Kortes gave a gender twist to Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece BLOOD ON THE TRACKS with her band, Mary Lee’s Corvette, and pop surrealist Robyn Hitchcock put his off-kilter spin on the oft-bootlegged ROYAL ALBERT HALL with his promo-only ROYAL QUEEN ALBERT AND BEAUTIFUL HOMER, recorded 31 years after the 1966 concert it recreated.

Pink Floyd has had both DARK SIDE OF THE MOON and THE WALL covered (the first as NOT-SO-BRIGHT SIDE OF THE MOON by the Squirrels and the second as REBUILD THE WALL by Luther Wright and the Wrongs), and even ’70s superstars Fleetwood Mac have spawned two covered albums: Dougal Reed’s lo-fi redo of  RUMOURS and Camper Van Beethoven’s radically altered TUSK.

Perhaps surprisingly, the act to generate the most covered albums was the premiere punk pop band, the Ramones.  At least three albums of the Ramones were recreated in the waning years of the past millennium.  Chicago’s Screeching Weasel was first with BEAT IS ON THE BRAT, their 1998 song-by-song remake of the Ramones’ self-titled first album.  (And indeed, Screeching Weasel’s entire oeuvre owes much to Johnny, Joey, DeeDee and the gang.)  Later that same year, the Vindictives overhauled LEAVE HOME and the Queers took on ROCKET TO RUSSIA.

It’s hard to imagine the covered album fad continuing much further, but then one would have been hard-pressed to predict its rise in the first place.  The world of popular music can not only be confusing, it can be downright befuddling.  One thing is for sure — when an entire album has been covered years after its original release, it is a work that has ipso facto proven its cultural significance.  Perhaps, unlike books, you can tell a record by its cover.