Mojo Magazine’s Best Covers (2004-2016)

August 28, 2016 6:23 PM

32 covers from twelve years of Mojo tribute albums

[Personal favorite: Andrew Bird with Nora O’Connor - Oh Sister (from Dylan Covered, September 2005)]

posted by maggieb (6 comments total)

Ahhhh... covers as in interpretations of songs. Cool!
posted by misterbee at 6:47 PM on August 28, 2016

Yeah, I thought covers as in printed graphics+photos, and was pleasantly surprised. Two huge standouts, for me: Us and Them, and I Want You. The latter especially. I can only ever listen to Dylan as covered, apparently, and this take is gorgeous. The twinkling and spilling notes just made me shiver.
posted by rp at 7:23 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

mojo! the stones covers one is great. my kid left it in the glove box. sweet!

i also love these cover glories (ok, some 'alt versions', not covers)
The Replicants
Sweet Relief
Rob Wasserman: Duets
Bridge School Concerts
The Other Side of Abbey Road
Bill Frissell, Have a Little Faith
posted by j_curiouser at 8:44 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Love the Mojo! There's a little hole-in-the-wall deli/newsstand near one of my regular gigs that seems to get the latest Mojo and Uncut before anyone else in town, and I often find myself making excuses to go by there when I think a new issue might be out.

One of my favorite playlists on the trusty iPod is this list, in sequence from 100 to 1: They polled songwriters (not critics or magazine writers, or at least not many) about their favorite songs, not performances. Some unexpected pleasures here. I appreciate Mojo more than any other music magazine, I think. Thank you for the post!
posted by Shotgun Shakespeare at 8:58 PM on August 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is pretty cool but I'm kind of surprised at how every one I've listened to has sounded similar -- a slow, quiet, mostly-acoustic, mostly-solo reinterpretation. (Except for Richard Thompson, and even that one is sparser than the Who's original.) Nobody takes a folk song and rocks it up; it's all exactly the opposite. I wonder if that monotony reflects more on the predictable taste of the webpage author than the contents of the original MOJO compilations.

There is a breathtaking version of "Dark Globe," though. Syd Barrett was so unique that his idiosyncratic inflections and mistakes feel like an inherent part of his songs, so most Syd covers are imitations. But Hitchcock's take strips away the bleary bleat and strained strum while leaving the desperate desolation.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:35 PM on August 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mojo Magazine's Discogs page.
posted by The Hamms Bear at 8:24 PM on September 3, 2016