When is a cover song better than the original? Only you can decide. This week Pavement takes on Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon.” MAGNET’s Edward Fairchild pulls the pin. Take cover!
Pavement is going back to those gold soundz. The band’s first reunion shows are slated to take place next spring in Australia, with additional shows at the U.K. All Tomorrow’s Parties festival (which the band is curating) and a four-night stint in New York City’s Central Park. In 1997, the band played a cover of the Echo & The Bunnymen classic “The Killing Moon” for a BBC Session, later releasing the track on the What’s Up Matador compilation, the Major Leagues EP and the reissue of Brighten The Corners. Switching out a minor chord for a major and laying some hipster slack down on the vocal line, Pavement removes some of the preciousness of the original and gets noisy at the end.
The Cover:
The Original:
6 replies on “Take Cover! Pavement Vs. Echo & The Bunnymen”
These are hilarious!! Do you guys think these up at the office?
“Pavement is going back to those gold soundz. The band’s first reunion shows are slated to take place next spring in Australia, with additional shows at the U.K. All Tomorrow’s Parties festival (which the band is curating) and a four-night stint in New York City’s Central Park.”
No, no, no. It could never happen like this.
Malkmus will punch out Stairs (or Stairs will punch out Malkmus, take your pick) halfway through the first reunion show and each of the band members will take a separate flight back to the States. Otherwise we can assume it all meant nothing the first time around.
Yeah, Pavement’s cover is great, but it’s pretty much a note-for-note rendition. Even Malkmus’ vocals follow Ian’s. I would say better to compare something like Xiu Xiu’s cover of ‘Ceremony’, or Casiotone for the Painfully Alone’s cover of ‘Graceland’ or ‘When U Were Mine’.
C.) Greg Laswell
Echo & The Bunnymen liked Greg’s new version so much they posted a link to it on their homepage, which is where I found it. And they were right–it’s terrific!
how can you say that pavement’s cover is a note-for-note rendition? did you even listen to it?
i like pavement’s version better, partly because of the guitar solos but mostly because of the cucumber/cabbage line.
Great cover by Pavement but really it comes down to whether the listener thinks the singer of the song *cares* if “you give yourself to him.” Ian MacCulloch’s vocals suggest considerable jealousy (and therefore the motive for making it a “killing moon”) while Malkmus’ vocals seem more “observational.” Plus the “sitar-like” guitars in Echo’s version are fantastic! Slacker vocals have their place, but 80’s post-punk brooding wins out here: Echo by a half-length at the finish line.