The Bedroom Covers (9/8)

Who: The Morning Benders

What: The Bedroom Covers

When: July 2008

Developing a theme here... Going with more covers today, courtesy of The Morning Benders. Recorded in the band’s apartment, these are surprisingly good quality, if a little less clean than may be expected. If these boys ability with covers is anything to go by, it’s a shame I haven’t listened to very much of their original material, as I imagine it must be really quite good.

I love a girl group cover, and I’m in luck as there’s TWO here, three, if you count the extra Daytrotter session of ‘Why Don’t They Let Us Fall in Love’, and the first of these is wonderful. Almost painfully cute, it’s soo gorgeous. The cover of the Crystals’ ‘He’s a Rebel’ is also wonderful. I’m gonna love these guys forever now just because they love to cover girl groups.

‘Lovefool’ is one of my favourite songs of all time, so it takes a lot for me to not actively hate any cover I come across. This version is sped up, has a bit more shuffle, but the instruments are toned down to allow the vocal to come through. The delicate harmonies of all their voices working together makes this (if possible) even more tender and lovely than the original. These are also quite faithful covers for the most part. The cover of ‘Crying’ by Roy Orbison doesn’t do much with the original, but is still very cute, and keeps a lot of the emotion of the lyrics.

There are weakish points, their cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ is nicer than the Corrs’ one, but isn’t really a patch on the original, it’s just nice, and ‘Caroline, No’ is just a bit..Well.. annoying. The introduction of the keyboard on ‘I Won’t Share You’ is an interesting stylistic choice, but in this version, it’s a little bit out of time, and as such a cute, sparkly line it feels far too heavy, and is at odds with the rest of the song.

Fools Rush In is a stompin’, right ol’ good time. They are so cute. His voice has this, fragility to it, that would, I feel, in any other setting feel a bit wrong, just a bit weak, but it’s just so cute!! Same goes for Talking Heads’ Pull Up The Roots, it’s good fun. It’s so different to the original, but at the same time, totally not, and it’s just really awesome.

So this was fun, I really really liked this, a collection of sound covers and some indication of creativity and flair. Well done.