Covers of the Week - What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (Jimmy Ruffin)

What Becomes of the Brokenhearted is a classic Motown R&B in this 1966 hit for Jimmy Ruffin (playlist) and there are some ereally great covers of the years.

Joan Osborne (playlist) does a really great soulful version.

Here is better version of it but I could not embed it

Cover of the Week - Love is a Battlefield (Pat Benatar)

Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar (playlist) is one of my favorite songs of all-times. Although several of Pat's songs would fit in that title. Power and passion pulsated from her rock and roll and flows into her covers.

For something differenct, I'll start off with a version by Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo but not the original but a very nice slightly different acoustic version

Covers of the Week - Scarborough Fair (English traditional)

Scarborough Fair is a traditional English ballad. Most people now it by way of Simon & Garfunkel. Not really a lot of variation but very beautiful.


Mike Masse and Sterling Cottam

Covers of the Week - The Lazy Song (Bruno Mars)

Took a weak off, and so I'm back with a new cover. This week it's Bruno Mars' (playlist) The Lazy Song which came out in February of 2011. Like most new songs, most of the covers tend to be done by fans and in Brono's original style but there are a lot of them and there are some really good performances. This song also has a lot of very funny parodies and I've added some but be aware some are a little adult so if your a easily offended don't watch.

Chester See has a great version on the softer side

Covers of the Week - Mash-up Special

This week is some thing different (and of course anything different is good).  For those that don't know a mash-up is where multiple songs are are combined into one. Here is a link to my regular mashups playlist which I call Non-Linear Melodies. Tonight I've collected some of my favorite acoustic mash-ups and mash-up covers from my Organic Mashups Playlist on youTube.

Mashing up Umbrella and Singing in the Rain has been done multiple time by Jamie Cullum and Glee. My favorite version is by Sonnet its a little more tender and just a better covers.

Covers of the Week - Poker Face (Lady Gaga)

"There's a fine line between a generic person from the 80s and Janice from the Muppet Show, and Lady Gaga dares to ride that line" (Molly Lewis). 

What can you say about Lady Gaga (playlist)? She is becoming the quintessential pop icon for today's generation. Poker Face is one of my favorite Lady Gaga songs and has the diverse set of covers to make it fun.

Molly Lewis (youTube) has fun with Lady Gaga

Covers of the Week - Crazy (Gnarls Barkley)

Last in our Crazy May trio is Gnarls Barkley's (playlist) Crazy which came out in 2006 and is a fun one. With loads of great covers that make you head bob, foot tap, butt squirm and your whole body rock out to a great party song.

Starting off with Nelly Furtado(playlist) absolutely awesome version

Covers of the Week - Crazy (Seal)

Released in 1990, Crazy by Seal (playlist) is an awesome song.  Being the middle sister of our Crazy trio, it may not get the recognition of the other Crazys and indeed Alanis Morissette  is the only big name to cover it but it has some great covers with a diversity of styles.

Alanis Morissette (playlist) great version

Covers of the Week - Crazy (Patsy Cline)

The Crazy Trilogy -  First one up from 1962 is the truly classic and tender Crazy written by Willie Nelson (playlist) and made famous by Patsy Cline (Playlist). One of the few country songs that I really love and it goes way back to my childhood.  Maybe its the deeply melancholy lyrics that I seem to have a fascination for.

Norah Jones (playlist)

Covers of the Week - Smells like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)

This week I've chosen a modern classic that I have enjoyed the diversity of performances for years.  Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana (playlist) is one of those songs that define a generation. This song some of the bet diversity of performance and any other in my collection of covers.

Tori Amos (playlist) version is a classic unto itself as she throughly "torisizes" it.

Covers of the Week - I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams Sr.)

I am not a big fan of country and western music. I don't dislike but I typically don't include it among normal listening. But there are exceptions especially when it comes to classic country blues like the next classic. I've always loved Hank Williams Sr. (playlist) since I was a wee little boy and "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is probably my favorite.

Cowboy Junkies (playlist) bring their own melancholy style

My Random Meme of the Week #3

Have it read to you on youTube
Do we anthropomorphize inherently?
Have you ever noticed that everything "metaphysical" or "supernatural" ultimately is about we humans.  Whether it be a an exaggeration of our abilities, a projection of ourselves as the cause for all things, or the insistence that everything is here to aid us. When we hear a strange noise, see something we don't understand, or feel something strange, it's just we humans  in another form or human like beings (ghosts, spirits, angles, daemon sprite).  When random events happen, good or bad, it must be because of some human like purpose or intent to reward or punish us (fates, destiny, Karma, luck) or because some human like being wanted it to happen (guardian angels, animal spirits, ancestors, demons, gods). When we look at our world an need to figure out how it works or how it got there, it can only be some super being with all the intelligence, purpose, emotions, and vanity of we humans that did it (God, universal consciousness, ).  When we look into the heavens and play connect the dots, those pattern we imagine must have meaning and be meant for us humans (astrology). When some one dies, we know humans are indestructible and they are going to a better (or worse) place (heaven, hell, afterlife, Hates, Valhalla, nirvana,) or they will start a new (reincarnation). And it goes on and on. But Why?

Covers of the Week - Candy (Paulo Nutini)

The problem with trying to find covers for relatively new songs is that they don't have time to be adapted to a variety of styles and genre. The covers you find tend to be a lot of acoustic and karaoke versions by fans trying to recreate a favorite song. There is nothing wrong with mimicking a great performance and many of them are very good, but from a listening to multiple covers point of view they get repetitive and admittedly I love a diversity of styles. But  when you find a song with a lot of covers like todays cover, you quickly realize that this song is something special and the diversity of covers will come.  I discovered Paulo Nutini's Candy while doing a generic search for "covers" on youTube and quickly fell in love with it. There are over a 100 covers and many of them are very good.  The ones here are the ones I like the best and I hope you like them.

Stephanie deBruijn's was the first cover I found and love listening to it

Covers of the Week - California Dreaming (Mamas & Papas)

This is one of my all time favorite songs.  I remember walking to high school and jr. high school in San Leandro, CA on many a cold, overcast, gloomy day with it going thru my head, feeling one with song as if it capture some quintessential part of me.  I think I have more covers (~15) of California Dreamin' than any other song in my collection and I would have more but this is the only song where I eliminated covers changed certain lyrics (normally modified lyrics are a plus) (See A Story of California Dreamin').


Here are some excellent covers starting off with Dana Owens' (Queen Latifah) absolutely awesome version:

Favorite Science Story of the Week

Science of the Week

The unexpected is always cool in real science.
Anomalies at Fermilab

-April 6, 2011 10:47 AM

The Tevatron accelerator at Fermilab is shutting down soon, for some unavoidable reasons (the LHC is taking over) and some frustrating ones (we’re out of money). But there may be life in the old beast yet; a couple of intriguing anomalies have particle theorists raising their eyebrows in charmingly understated excitement.

My Random Meme of the Week #1

Have it read to you on youTube
You don't need Science to know that there are no gods. All you have to do is look around without assuming gods exist and you will see there is nothing in our reality that even suggests that there is a god. What science does, is remove that void of ignorance about the world around us, that we humans so readily fill with delusions of ourselves. So often, ignorance is that still water that mirrors our own reflection, projecting ourselves deep into that pool of ignorance, and making us believe that behind everything there is a creature that in so many ways looks like us. It's not God theists worship, It's themselves.

Covers of the Week - Wuthering Heights (Kate Bush)

So lets start it out with a classic Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. This song has many great covers although alot of people only try to mimic Kate which is of course nearly impossible.  Here are 7 who try to put their own bend on a classic.

Just plain Awesome: