Neon Musical Insight

I already expressed my views when Frightened Rabbits took on The Lemonheads’ “Confetti” and Coheed and Cambria surprisingly soothed with their rendition of The Smiths’ unforgettable “A Rush and A Push and the Land Is Our’s” on the A.V. Club’s Undercover series, now for the most recent installment, it was a clash of the titans. Two bands that I have an immense amount of respect for met on one song. The take was Superchunk exploring the world of loneliness and darkness when they selected The Cure’s “Inbetween Days,” the opening track off of their  1985, more upbeat album The Head on the Door.

I thoroughly enjoyed Superchunk’s bombastic, power-pop take on the cut, but was a bit turned off by what seemed to be a slight bit of apathy from the band when choosing the song. Their reasoning for picking it wasn’t the most flattering and during the last 10-15 seconds, bassist Laura Ballance looked extremely uninterested, gazing around the room as if to be taking in the scenery (granted the bass lines aren’t the most challenging, I would have imagined that the band would be at least slightly stoked to take on such a memorable, time-defining song.)

Regardless, the cover was pretty spot on and one of the better sessions of the series thus far. Looking forward to see who selects The Replacements’ “I Will Dare” and R.E.M.’s “Driver 8.” Check the video below.

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Fellow bloggers Stereogum just dropped a 13-song playlist entitled: Mysplice 4 that consists of some serious exclusive mash-ups in collaboration with the Australian producer Neil Mason — better known as Team9. Some examples: Phoenix’s “1901″ meets the Cure’s “Lovesong” for some heavy swooning, while Neon Indian and the Pixies join forces for a funky, neo-synthed version of “Monkey Gone to Heaven”.

Yes, the “mash-up” may be the most overused and exhausted enforcer of “dance music” this past decade, allowing hipsters to brutally reclaim the floors, and yes, some may even say that it has been most significantly recognized for acting as a paralyzer towards creativity more than anything else, but what better way to officially say goodbye then with something as ostensibly proud? Let’s call it a last hoorah (please?)… Check out each track below:

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The Cure return with their thirteenth studio album 4:13 Dream, an album that took almost four years to complete, which makes it that much more disappointing. 4:13 Dream is one of those albums that sounds like it may have so much potential, starting from the first second the music sets in with “Underneath The Stars”, a song that sounds most familiar to earlier Cure material, yet falls flat on its face as time progresses.

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