A couple of years ago, Stereogum put together Drive XV a tribute to R.E.M.‘s classic Automatic For the People for the 15th anniversary.
I love hearing covers mostly because it’s interesting to see how other bands interpret songs. I’ve always said that the test of a well written song is if a different band can play it as good or better than the original. Not all of the songs on this comp achieve this, but a few do and I had a hard time choosing to highlight Dappled Cities‘ “Try Not To Breathe” or Rogue Wave‘s “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight.” Both take the originals in new directions, but I settled on “Breath” because I love the original and there’s something appropriate about their ethereal cover.
The great thing is you can check both out along with the other tracks at Stereogum’s site and even better, they’re all available as free downloads. Just go ahead and skip over Meat Puppets’ “Everybody Hurts” though.
