Come November, the UK charity War Child will release a new all-covers album,
Heroes, as a way to raise funds for its efforts to protect children in conflict-ravaged areas around the globe. So far, the tracklisting is as such: Duffy covering "Live & Let Die"; Hot Chip re-recording Joy Division's "Transmission"; Beck taking on Bob Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat"; the Kooks doing whatever it is they do to the Kinks' "Victoria"; and Rufus Wainwright constructing a medley from two songs off Brian Wilson's
Smile. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Wainwright track is the one that piques my interest most; while Paul McCartney said that Duffy's version of the Wings track was "great—I was really impressed," I'm a bit, shall we say, skeptical. I get that she's cute and can rock a romper onstage, but how much longer must we all suffer through this "next Dusty" charade? (And who picked her to be the musical guest on
Saturday Night Live this week, anyway? Is this season's musical theme "artists who don't sound that great live, but it's OK because our crummy sound tech prevents even the best bands from sounding any good at all, ever?") [
Billboard]
Idolator
Sometimes you need to hear the hoary, obvious classics. Bob Dylan knows this as well as anyone, which is why his show last night, at the University of Minnesota (from which he dropped out after a year before heading to New York to make it on the folk circuit), climaxed with "Blowin' in the Wind," which Dylan played after noting that "It looks like things are going to change now." According to veteran Minneapolis critic Jon Bream, "After Dylan and his band took their bows and the houselights went on at Northrop, concert-goers checked their cell phones and started screaming about the results of the presidential election. They headed outside of Northrop and began singing and dancing on the University of Minnesota campus." Sounds familiar, no? [Star Tribune]
Bob Dylan has a pair of poems, titled "17" and "21," in the new issue of The New Yorker. All well and good, but I fear that some contrarians won't be convinced of his genius until he pens a caption for a cartoon. [
