Month: December 2015

Top 50 Cover Songs of 2015 (50-26)

Here’s the list of My 50 Favourite Covers of 2015 (50-26). (Original artist is in parentheses.)

50. FKA Twigs – Elastic Heart (Sia)

 

49. Houndmouth – Runaround Sue (Dion)

 

48. E^ST – Bittersweet Symphony (The Verve)

 

47. Sympathy and The Lion – Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen)

 

46. Ezra Furman – Crown of Love (Arcade Fire)

 

45. Years and Years – Hotline Bling/Dark Horse (Drake/Katy Perry)

 

44. #1 Dads – Two Weeks (FKA Twigs)

 

43. Brandi Carlile – Murder In The City (The Avett Brothers)

 

42. Watkins Family Hour – Steal Your Heart Away (Fleetwood Mac)

 

41. Milky Chance – Shake It Off (Taylor Swift)

 

40. The Killers – The Bucket (Kings of Leon)

 

39. The Vaccines – Night Changes (One Direction)

 

38. Charles Bradley – Changes (Black Sabbath)

 

37. Muse – Lies (Chvrches)

 

36. PVRIS – Talking Body (Tove Lo)

 

35. Walk Off The Earth – Cheerleader (OMI)

 

34. Bob Wayne – Skyfall (Adele)

Cool cover. Can’t find a link to share at present.

 

33. Chvrches – What Do You Mean (Justin Bieber)

 

32. The Belligerents – Praise You (Fatboy Slim)

 

Bonus: Patti Smith – Smells Like Teen Spirit (NIrvana)

 

31. Lucius – Wake Me (Bleachers)

 

30. Ben Gibbard – Archie, Marry Me (Alvvays)

 

29. Catfish And The Bottlemen – Read My Mind (The Killers)

 

28. Missio – Zombie (Cranberries)

 

Bonus: Kasabian – Sesame Street Theme/Good Vibrations (Beach Boys)

 

27. Disclosure and Sam Smith – Hotline Bling (Drake)

 

26. Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires – Mutineer (Warren Zevon)

 

Top 20 Songs of November 2015

My favourite tunes of November, 2015:

20. A Silent Film – Lightning Strike

 

19. R. City f. Adam Levine – Locked Away

 

18. New Politics – Girl Crush

 

17. Chvrches – Keep You On My Side/Bury It/Down Side of Me

 

16. Metric – Lie Lie Lie/Cascades/Fortunes

 

15. Sia – Bird Set Free

 

14. The 1975 – Love Me

 

13. Grimes – Belly Of The Beat/Easily/World Princess Part II

Grimes’ label is doing a hell of a job of making sure tracks from her new album don’t reside on Youtube. Alas. These three are really dope tracks.

 

12. The Helio Sequence – Red Shifting

 

11. Baio – Sister of Pearl

 

Bonus: Happy Hollows – Endless/Goodnight Radio – Sophia So Far

Two really cool tracks from the film Before I Disappear.

 

10. Majical Cloudz – Downtown

This sparse gem is affecting in ways that are hard to pinpoint.

 

9. Borns – The Emotion/American Money

What a debut record from Garrett Borns.

 

8. Dragonette & Dada & Paul Harris – Red Heart Black

Martina Sorbara is on every hook-y dance song of the last three years, I’m convinced.

 

7. Book of Fears – The Water Lets You In

Brilliant song from an astounding show (Bloodline).

 

Bonus: The Features – This Disorder

 

6. Hailee Steinfeld – Rock Bottom

Taylor Swift is so ubiquitous, that aping her sound/voice is a pretty decent plan if you’re looking for success/air play. You have to have a strong song to go along with that plan though, and luckily for Ms. Steinfeld, this is that.

 

5. Guster – Long Night/Simple Machine

My treasures. I suppose I’ve felt this for a while, but after seeing them recently in Toronto at Danforth Music Hall (I believe that was the 4th time I’d seen them), the thought has crystallized: Guster is one of my favourite bands of all-time.

 

4. Chvrches – Playing Dead

Like Metric, just with a smaller catalogue, Chvrches employ the release strategy of ‘hit after hit after hit after hit after hit after hit after…’ With so many slayers, I don’t think anyone is feigning death though.

 

3. Coast Modern – Modern Life

An electro-indebted ode to Cage The Elephant. This is a (really) good thing.

 

2. Missy Elliott f. Pharrell – WTF (Where They From)

The Queen of hip-hop makes her triumphant return. Oh, and this Pharrell beat is ludicrously good.

 

1. Grimes – Flesh Without Blood/Kill v. Maim

Wish the record version of Kill v. Maim was available online, as the live one I’ve linked here is of just okay quality. Nevertheless, these are possibly the two best tracks from what is one of the best albums of the year.