Mellow, bright indie pop covers from the masters of the genre*. Creamy harmonies, catchy emo melodies, beamy guitars, and fine young indie heart-n-soul. Sweet and earnest, with just a tinge of punk. (There is a word for this kind of music, but I’ll refrain from stating it here.) These guys have an innocence about them that has somehow transcended any slam the post-90s indie snots have ever thrown at them. This is an all-covers album of the band’s 12 fave songs -- they manage to breathe life into songs I love anyway, and truly make them their own.

*Don’t know Nada Surf, you say? Sadly, you do. They got ‘known’ with “Popular”, a song that sounds nothing like their other songs. Sometimes, when I listen to it in the context of the record, I envision that some other band -- you know, the same one that recorded the Butthole Surfers’ “Pepper” -- made it instead.

RIYL: The Get Up Kids, Death Cab, Teenage Fanclub, Jimmy Eat World, The Stone Roses

try: 7, 1, 2, 10
no FCCs

*1. bill fox -- moonbeamy electric guitar a la the stone roses. bright, melodic, upbeat, exuberant. fun fact: this guy (bill fox) is pretty much the king of cleveland power pop.
*2. depeche mode -- big hollow drums and heavy bass. great harmonies, fast ripply guitar (just like the intro to ‘happy kid’). they actually acapella the ‘ba ba’s at the end.
3. the go-betweens -- wrenching and gushy intro verse. busy boppy chorus (they freaking acapella the violin line!). dark, dig-in bridge. like the best nada surf songs, manages to make an uptempo pop tune sad as hell.
4. arthur russell -- slow acoustic and naked vocals. short, cute. smartly and perfectly ends on the title of the next track.
5. dwight twilley -- starts with looped upcrawl electric. bright, midtempo reachy glam pop. freaking beautiful harmonies.
6. kate bush -- driving/light stick drums, slow-chord piano anchor. overall mellow yet about-to-pop sound. you keep waiting for it to break into rainbows.
*7. spoon -- “all i ever asked of you is a copy of garage days and to tell me the truth.” pretty nearly perfect -- boingy drums and kitchenware percussion, laid back chillster groove, borrows the harmonies from the original and makes them 3x as great. turns what is really just a libertines-esque demo into a big fat awesome indie track. this song does exactly what a good cover should -- it sounds like, essentially, the song spoon should have written. i like this so much better than the original. the spoon guys probably do too.
8. coralie clement -- looped electric guitar line. shakers and speedy timekeeper bass. bright, harmony-laden chorus. pretty yet mellow. lyrics in french.
9. moody blues -- ha! big, loud, fast & fuzzy... to start. rip-roaring power chords segue into slowwwed down lilty folk a la ‘pure imagination’. ends as it starts. “i’m looking for someone to change my life.” this song is like the best joke ever if you know the original. dear god.
*10. soft pack -- fast happy punky riffy sunshiny highway pop. totally bounceable. “all right oh yeah.” 100% california.
11. mecromina -- heavy minor strings. downtempo, mournful, beautiful, heavy. really thick sound. like spiralling down. lyrics in spanish.
12. the silly pillows -- cute, playful echo-ey waltzer piano. instrumental. fades to reverb.