As a nice companion piece to yesterday’s live album, today we have a random cut from an album of covers.
I feel the same way about covers albums that I do about live albums. They’re generally not worth my time. I do enjoy covers performed in concert or tucked into an album of originals, but releasing a full-length covers album strikes me as lazy.
I’m not a fan of live albums as a rule, viewing them as the contractual obligations they usually are. But I do allow for a few exceptions.
Among those are Billy Joel’s Songs in the Attic, Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense and Simon & Garfunkel’s Concert in Central Park.
Today’s Random Weekend SOTD comes from another live album I enjoy quite a bit — Barenaked Ladies’ Rock Spectacle.
Once in awhile I come across a song in my iTunes library the origins of which are complete mystery.
Such is the case with today’s Random Weekend selection, ‘I Hear Them All’ by Old Crow Medicine Show.
When I first heard the track, I figured it must have come from a soundtrack — perhaps the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou? or Inside Llewyn Davis. But no… the associated album is the band’s own. And even weirder, this is the only song from that album I own.
The internet is funny.
On the YouTube clip of today’s Random Weekend SOTD, posted by some kind soul in September of 2009, a flame war broke out between somebody comparing Ron Sexsmith to Paul McCartney and a McCartney detractor.
It was a short battle, only a few posts long though it spanned a month. The Sexsmith fan accused his opponent of lacking “couth,” a nice touch.
I hate when instrumentals turn up on Random iTunes Weekends because I rarely have anything interesting to say about them. (That’s assuming I have interesting things to say about songs with lyrics, I realize, which probably isn’t always the case).
So I won’t attempt to analyze today’s SOTD, a bonus track from the re-release of The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle. I’ll just present it without comment for your enjoyment.
Meet Me In Montauk 