This week, we’re looking at recycled music: song covers. Most – if not all – bands do this at one time or another; they cover songs, essentially re-making them. And the longer we’ve gone without a new iteration of the song, the better – at least in my opinion. After all, who wants to hear a new version of Milli Vanilli’s Baby Don’t Forget My Number every few years? Not I, said the fly! There are benefits to covering songs though, including having an easy go-to for bands that are still starting out, and possibly being even better than the original; of course, that judgement tends to be a matter of opinion. The only way to know for sure is to do it and hope it hits!

Our first song hearkens back to that last known temporal bastion of brotherly love, the soulful 70’s. Earth Wind and Fire recorded their song September at the same time they recorded their 1979 album I Am, but released it as a single in ’78 and not on the album, for some reason – probably because it’s an awesome song. Did I mention that my birthday is in September? September 7. The song mentions the twenty-first night of September, which is divisible by seven, so numerologically, I’m totally there. Week three of Robstravaganza! September hit the top of the R&B chart and number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, so they must have known it was solid gold, baby. Pomplamoose, the true indie duo known individually as Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte, recognized that as well and covered it in their VideoSongs series, which are as much fun to watch as they are to listen and sing along to:

Our next pick comes from a band that saw it’s heyday in the 90’s ska revival. One-hit-wonder Spiral Starecase’s 1969 Top 100 hit More Today than Yesterday has only been covered commercially a few times, and in 1998 Goldfinger brought back to the fore this wonderful song as a single for the soundtrack of the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy. The video is nothing special, so feel free to read another post while listening to this gem:

“Love is stronger than thunder” -Milli Vanilli