YOUTH Mixtape

This mixtape was put together by a young person of 15 years, the aim of it to shine a spotlight on young talent each artist aged below 18. An excellent idea, one I support totally, and give these guys time, and a few of them can be properly great, but a large percentage of these covers suffer from a bit of overthinking, I’m afraid.

This is certainly the case with track one, Teenage Reverb’s cover of the Backstreet Boys’ ‘Get Down’. Unfortunately, like their name suggests, this one’s just smothered in reverb until hardly a note remains recognizable of the original – I shudder to do it, as it makes me sound old and condescending, but I hope it is an age thing, and once they learn some restraint (reverb is only to be used sparingly of course) they can make some lovely music.

Faux Fur do a great cover of ‘Working For The Weekend’. But again children, what is it with just drowning everything in reverb and burying the vocals? Let ‘em come through, you sound great!

KYNAN’s cover of ‘Purple Rain’ is very good though. Great voice, great use of the beats, and keeping recogniseable elements from the original to bring the song very much into the techniques of this century. Well done. Very well done.

Wonder Bear do a very cute cover of ‘This Little Light of Mine’, it’s echoey and the layering of the vocals is quite a cool effect, although a little overused. It feels like they heard it and decided it sounded good, so put it in far too many times.

I don’t care what anyone says, I LOVE Alvin and the Chipmunks, I think they’re SO cute, and I love ‘Christmas Don’t Be Late’ – Catwalk’s version feels a little bit strange without Alvin, Simon and Theodor’s trademark squeaks, and, unlike the original, it lacks a lot of the excitement and impatience of waiting for Christmas day, but it is still very cute.

So all in all, this is a promising start for these youngsters, if these guys are anything to go by though, the future is swamped in reverb (and on the internet for free).

The Myspace Mixtape (Covers Edition)

This is the best idea ever. Thanks to CoverMe (which is an amazing website in itself) I discovered this lovely website, HI54LOFI Records who, if you sign up to their mailing list send you all kinds of really awesome (and totally free) music. They’re ace, and I really do urge you to go and check it out.

This, today is from one such email.. So without further ado..

The prevalence of pretty-voiced, female, singer-songwritery types on this does nothing to dissuade me, in fact, every single one is lovely. Glass Cake takes on Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’, doing a duet with herself, just piano chords in the background, she’s got a good voice, and while this isn’t exactly changing the world, it’s a lovely way to spend a few minutes. Then Tiny Ruins takes Peg Leg Howell’s classic ‘Rolling Mills Blues’ into her capable hands, and to be honest, I’m a little bit speechless about this one, her voice is soo charming, and perfectly suited to this song. I love.

Flying the flag for the boys, Me as a Pilot does a lovely job on Pedro the Lion’s ‘Almost There’ and Benjamin Shaw, while not really striking any chord with me, is clearly keeping with a theme of soft, gentle and pretty covers I see developing.

As with most compilations, I was bound to find some I didn’t like, Me And The Horse I Rode In On’s cover of the Avett Brothers’ ‘Weight of Lies’ is one of them. I don’t know the original, and I don’t really like this version. It’s slow, which isn’t in itself a bad thing, but it sort of plods along and is not really enjoyable at all. Also, I’ve never been a Johnny Cash fan, and I’m really, really fighting that prejudice to try to like A Singer of Song doing ‘Walk The Line’. The guy’s voice is fine, the guitar playing is suitable, and it carries the emotion of the lyrics well, but I’ve never liked this song, and this doesn’t really change my mind.

I have to give props to one of the best names that will stop being funny about 5 minutes after hearing it: Dress Up Like a Hooker, I’ll Play Charlie Sheen. Well done guys, also, well done for not slaughtering ‘Just Like Heaven’. That’s one of my favourite songs of all time, and while yours is not even close to a patch on the original, I can appreciate what you’ve done, it’s a cute, offbeat, acoustic take and that’s fine.