Art of the Cover - Elbow's "The Take Off and Landing of Everything" (2014)

Gorgeous artwork adorns the rather fine sixth studio album by Elbow, released a few weeks back.

The group spent the first two weeks of the album's recording at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in November 2012, before moving back to their own Blueprint Studios in Salford to complete the album.

The LP was originally recorded with the working title of All at Once and then renamed Carry Her, Carry Me.

The Take Off and Landing of Everything has received acclaim from music critics. Writing for The Daily Telegraph, reviewer Neil McCormick awarded The Take Off and Landing of Everything a maximum score of five stars, stating that it was ...

"fantastic: an album of world-beating standard yet still intimate and friendly, an epic of the everyday, a romance of the real."

Tracklisting

This Blue World 7:13

Charge 5:16

Fly Boy Blue / Lunette 6:23

New York Morning 5:19

Real Life (Angel) 6:47

Honey Sun 4:56

My Sad Captains 6:00

Colour Fields 3:42

The Take Off And Landing Of Everything 7:11

The Blanket Of Night 4:24

  

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Art of the Cover - Peter Gabriel's "And I’ll Scratch Yours" (2013)

Ewwww - is that a microscopic shot of Gabriel's dome?  ... Best go see a specialist, mate!

That's more than enough frivolity. Let's get fucking serious .... it's that bloke out of Genesis for fuck sake!

Yap, Saint Peter is back and this week finally releases the long-planned companion to his 2010 covers album Scratch My Back; a new 12-track compilation called - appropriately enough - And I’ll Scratch Yours.

The LP actually is also packaged in a very reasonably-priced double CD which also includes Scratch My Back.

Not really a Gabriel album, rather it's (most of) the artists he covered on that original album returning the favour by covering his songs. 

The astonishing 'high concept' approach was summarised by Saint Peter:

"Rather than make a traditional covers record, I thought it would be much more fun to create a new type of project in which artists communicated with each other and swapped a song for a song, i.e. you do one of mine and I'll do one of yours, hence the title - Scratch My Back - And I'll Scratch Yours."

So scratching Pete's back (not a nice image!) here is an eclectic array of acclaimed indie favorites and some very established acclaimed artists ... and, erm, Regina Spektor!

Among the most anticipated has been one-trick-pony Arcade Fire’s take on Gabriel’s 1980 single “Games Without Frontiers,” which hit the web over the weekend.

Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back album project is the first part of a series of song exchanges in which Gabriel and other leading artists reinterpret each other's songs. 

To help craft his recording of the album's eclectic array of cult favorites and classic tracks, Gabriel enlisted former Durutti Column member John Metcalfe, composer, arranger and the expertise of producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd's The Wall, Lou Reed's Berlin) and engineer, mixer and producer Tchad Blake (Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits). 

Gabriel describes this as a very personal record with twelve songs performed only with orchestral instruments and voice. He made the choice not to include guitar or drums. The album s richly diverse sounds include the sparse romance of Lou Reed's The Power of the Heart , the powerful musical journey of David Bowie s Heroes and an epic arrangement of Arcade Fire s My Body Is A Cage. Gabriel and his collaborators recorded the album at George Martin s Air Lyndhurst Studios and the Real World Temple with further editing and mixing at his own Real Worlds Studio in Wiltshire.  

The Scratch My Back release is one of the most creative and engaging records from an iconic artist in a long time. The marketing focus is to penetrate Peter Gabriel s core fan base as well as fans of all genres and in all demographics given the scope of artists being covered as well as its depth of composition.

Tracklisting 

1. I Don't Remember (David Byrne)
2. Come Talk To Me (Bon Iver)
3. Blood Of Eden (Regina Spektor)
4. Not One Of Us (Stephin Merritt)
5. Shock The Monkey (Joseph Arthur)
6. Big Time (Randy Newman)
7. Games Without Frontiers (Arcade Fire)
8. Mercy Street (Elbow)
9. Mother Of Violence (Feist ft. Timer Timbre)
10. Solsbury Hill (Lou Reed)
11. Biko (Paul Simon)

  

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Leonard Cohen - The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall

The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall
BBC Radio 2
Saturday 01 November
Mp3 / 114Mb



from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

We've written before about one of the greatest songs of all time, 's majestic which will surely soon be the most covered song ever - thanks to a slew of awful saccharine versions proliferating lately!

We've written about this masterpiece several times before

The popularity now of this great track, when for years the original and best versions (the very different versions from Various Positions and Cohen Live, respectively) were all but ignored, has everything to do with dilution of art and the consequent effect of making art palatable to the masses!

Said process started with the saccharine Jeff Buckley version on the Grace LP and has never let up, as the song has become - and still becomes - ever more and more diluted!

It really grates when morons say that, for example, Buckley's or Wainwright's or, Heaven forbid, Bon Jovi's version is the best! Listen to Lenny's two original released versions assholes! Just because Lenny's voice isn't exactly angelic doesn't mean the maestro is clueless as to how one of his masterpieces should be properly delivered!

Lenny - and only Lenny - delivers this great song perfectly!

Lately Hallelujah has bizarrely become a standard for idiotic acts in dross muzak shows such as American Idol and some crap UK show called X Factor!

Something's wrong! Hallelujah's not exactly Macca's mawkish Yesterday (the most covered track of all time, officially)! Or one of those vile Mariah Carey type songs the morons on these shows are always squealing out! Hallelujah is a complex, multi-layered song of beautiful and powerful poetry, above a perfectly sublime and deceptively simple melody.

On the other hand, perhaps, unbeknown to us, the taste of the masses has increased at an infinite rate recently!!!

by tulzdavampslayer

Anyway, here's an interesting recent BBC Radio show devoted to this great song and hosted by Guy Garvey from Brit Indie darlings Elbow!

Here's the Beeb blurb;

A Mercury Prize-winner hasn't got the guts to cover it; Bob Dylan and Bono are two of the many who've attempted it; Jeff Buckley's version is in Rolling Stone's top 500 greatest songs ever. The song in question? Leonard Cohen's transcendental Hallelujah.

"I like to imagine Hallelujah as a rather stately creature," says presenter Guy Garvey (Elbow frontman and said Mercury winner) "It's a mark of its power and guile that artists who didn't even write it, feel protective of it."

The ever eloquent and always genial Garvey does a bewitching job of explaining the nuances and dramatically different interpretations of this magical song, helped by some of the artists and producers who've worked on the 120 covers.

Praise be.

Here she be:

http://lix.in/-3b7c93
http://lix.in/-3d0334
114Mb

Here's a collection of just ten very "varied" covers of this classic! Can you spot the one good version?!

10 YouTube Hallelujah Performances

Big thanks to SonicTrooper and DigitalReporter

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