Listen to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore lovely cover of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin"

boing
1

Originally published at: Listen to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore lovely cover of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" | Boing Boing

…

4 Likes
2

That was boring, And offers nothing that wasn’t in the original recording. What a waste.

3

tgKaE

8 Likes
4

The title track of the cover album is pretty good:

1 Like
5

The Kurt Vile cover of Run Run Run is pretty awesome. Still keeps the spirt of the song but adds a bit of a new element to it, a bit of a drive. And Kurt’s vocals work great singing Lou Reed.

2 Likes
6

I was very heartened my 17yr old was listening to the original version of “Run Run Run” the other day (one of my fav VU songs). I’ll definitely turn her on to this version. Who knew? A teen with taste.

1 Like
7

Well. . . .

I’ve noticed that with all these tribute compilations that have come out over the last several decades, very few are solid end-to-end, but most of them will have a couple really worthwhile interpretations, that maybe don’t make up for the cost of the whole collection but are good enough that I come back to them again and again.

Your mileage may vary.

2 Likes
8

And MIchael fucking Stipe. That one caught me off guard.

4 Likes
10

I missed that really close drum in the original. I like it otherwise, despite similarities. Wish it’d been produced differently. That drum’s low end really brings the whole song into balance and I think the contrast with a much brighter version would’ve been cool.

11

I prefer the original. Lou Reed sounds like he’s on something-- though not having even tried heroin, Moore’s rendition might well be more accurate.

Billy Idol’s cover gets away from Reed’s performance. I hate it, but no one can accuse him of imitating Reed.

1 Like
12

Why so? Quality of the track? Just surprised that he’s still doing the occasional music related thing?

13

And yet, no Velvet Underground cover ever managed to beat the Nick Cave / Bad Seeds version of All Tomorrow’s Parties (in my opinion, of course :wink:):

(The whole of Kicking Against the Pricks is superb, actually.)

3 Likes
14

My favourite cover of All Tomorrow’s Parties is by the Velvet Underground:

(I believe that’s John Cale on vocals, I greatly prefer this version to the album version with Nico)

1 Like
15

Venus in Furs sounds so off…

1 Like
16

I just re-listened to that whole live reunion album and it was more hit-or-miss than I remembered it. I guess I mostly just remembered the good tracks. (I’ll say the same about the tribute album from the post, I like some of it, but some of it I’m content having listened to it once)

2 Likes
17

Its like every anthology in any media There are never great end to end. There are always really good bits but the majority is medicocre to bad.

1 Like
18

Some of the Hal Wilner tribute albums are great end-to-end in my opinion, but he did a lot of work to really curate them, and some are really more like concept albums.

2 Likes
19

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.