When we’re in our teens, it’s common that we first discover the music we see as our own, discarding the vinyl our parents played, and kicking back on beats to our own tune. For me it was a migration from 60s pop to 70s prog and hard rock. But, when you get to middle age you might find yourself living in some kind of shack and you may ask yourself, well what do I listen to now, as you let the days go by? For me, I’ve revisited many of those “discs” my parents played, but digesting them via a stream of 1s and 0s rather than ass the amplified jitterings of a diamond-tipped needle coursing through the vinyl vein.
And, in turn a huge spectral wall of sound has fed into my own music making as you may well have heard via my BandCamp page. I also like to add a new spin to some of those old favourites, putting together cover versions. What was an endless surprise to me was how the ranking of the cover songs I used to have on SoundCloud ran quite steadily and reflected the longevity of some classic songs. Personally, I love all of them, despite their not fitting into any single niche, indeed they couldn’t be more different, could they, although they’re all basically singing and guitar with percussion? This week, for instance, the Top 5 listens to tracks I’ve racked up are as follows:
Take me home, country roads – John Denver
I’ll Be There – Chic ft. Nile Rodgers
Freewill – Rush
Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty
Solsbury Hill – Peter Gabriel
You’ll notice in at number 2, my cover of the new Chic song (originally recorded and mooted for Sister Sledge back in the day by Nile and Nard), now if you’re uptown, head on downtown, cos that’s where the real funk is at…that song is going to be the most mahusive hit of the summer of 2015, just you watch [UPDATE: It was a number one single! It was also banned by SoundCloud because, fundamentally my version was soooo good!].