The tribute album trend kicked into high gear during the 1990s. I believe partly because there were second and third generation rockers who started paying tribute to those first or second gen musicians. Even bands as untrendy as the Carpenters had tribute albums in the 90s (and that one’s great!). These affairs were hit and miss. Some great covers mixed with a lot of fair-to-middling tracks. This is one of the better ones IMO.
Tonight’s selections from the Freedom of Choice: Yesterday's New Wave Hits As Performed By Today's Stars album. All proceeds from this release went to Planned Parenthood. Like minded bands covering beloved material; all for a worthy cause.
The mad outpouring of tribute albums in the early 90s was a mixed bag. Occasionally you'd get relatively decent artists giving a new twist to your favorite songs or, even better, songs you might not care for in their original form. (As noted previously, the Carpenters tribute is a personal favorite.) But more often you'd get some minor artists offering rather bland treatments that didn't add much to the originals.
This is one of the better ones. The album features a litany of 90s alt.rock superstars (some enduring, some... less so) with their take on various New Wave-era hits & misses. (Plus, as a bonus, the proceeds went to Planned Parenthood.) And while much of this is, like any tribute album, truly inessential, there are a handful of tunes I still listen to today.
As usual, Sonic Youth drops by and provides the stand-out track (see also their tributes to the Beach Boys, Neil Young, and the afore-referenced Carpenters). In this case, they take the slightly fringe-hit "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand and give it the Sonic Youth treatment, a blistering barrage of guitars that demands testing the limits of your speakers, the nonsensical French lyrics washed in fuzz. Yo La Tengo similarly refashions (but just barely) Blondie's "Dreaming" as a fizzy indie rock pop tune, as do the Muffs with the Paul Collins Beat's "Rock & Roll Girl"; Redd Kross amps up the Go-Gos' "How Much More"; Superchunk turns Devo's "Girl U Want" into... well, a Superchunk song; the Connells provide a faithful but still enjoyable cover of Split Enz's perfect pop tune "I Got You." The album closes out with Soul Asylum's joyously sloppy revisit to the Vibrators' bubblegum-punk "Baby Baby."
Again, nothing here that's gonna change your life, but a fistful of fun nonetheless. — Jittery White Guy Music
Redd Kross - How Much More (The Go-Go’s)
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The Muffs - Rock & Roll Girl (The Beat)
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Sonic Youth - Ca Plane Pour Moi (Plastic Bertrand)
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Yo La Tengo - Dreaming (Blondie)
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Erectus Monotone - Destination Unknown (Missing Persons)
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Polvo - Mexican Radio (Wall of Voodoo)
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Superchunk - Girl U Want (Devo)
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Nikki Glaser, Paul Scheer, Mon Laferte, guest host Kumail Nanjiani
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The Daily Show: Pre-empted
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