Covered: The Carpenters

Nothing like a bit of nostalgia for the weekend.
Yesterday, I was listening to some Carpenters covers on my iPod and this thought rose up: 'Are there more I'm not aware of?'. So I went ahead and did some extensive research (i.e. googling 'carpenters cover'), and found out there was an entire tribute album called 'If I Were A Carpenter', with covers contributed by these mid-90s alternative bands, released in 1994. Not until then did I realize that Sonic Youth's age-old cover of 'Superstar' was from this compilation. Had this album been released in 2007, it would have been featured in just about every music blog already. There are definitely some great gems here. They just brought back so many memories. I was kind of brought up getting used to this kind of melodic music, with my parents' habit of listening to stuff from The Carpenters, The Beatles and pre-Saturday-Night-Fever Bee Gees. I still remembered watching that music video for 'Only Yesterday' on an ancient VHS tape. Poor Karen...
Enjoy these covers from that compilation, and a couple more. Nice weekend, everyone.



Shonen Knife - Top Of The World
Jaunty and Japanese-y.
The Cranberries - (They Long To Be) Close To You
Faithful and Irish.
Cinerama - Yesterday Once More
Atmospheric.
Sonic Youth - Superstar
Lo-fi, heartbreak drone.
Grant Lee Buffalo - We've Only Just Begun
Warm.
Emmy Rossum - Rainy Days And Mondays
Thickly layered and unnecessarily dramatic, to be honest.


Purchase the compilation album