Monday, November 24, 2008

He's gonna kick some ass with his own pipe wrench


Pitchfork reports that New Pornographer A.C. Newman will be providing a cover of A-Ha's Take On Me for a Starbucks CD compilation to be released (likely) around Valentine's Day. Nice! He also submitted another cover of the Go-Betweens' Love Goes On!, though the coffee DJs only took the one. Newman's sophomore solo release Get Guilty will be released in January.

By freak coincidence last week while at a used CD shop, I discovered and snapped up a 2005 incarnation of this Valentine's covers compilation, Sweetheart. Perhaps because I don't go to Starbucks often, let alone buy music from there, I was completely oblivious to this series, in which their "favorite artists sing their favorite love songs". I was further pleasantly shocked when I flipped the CD over and saw Rufus Wainwright, M. Ward, Calexico, Gary Jules, Madeleine Peyroux, Dean Wareham & Britta Phillips, and more contributing exclusive love song covers. An earlier compilation was released in 2004 with covers from the likes of Aimee Mann, Sarah Harmer, Nick Lowe, and Kathleen Edwards.

Neko Case - Buckets of Rain [originally by Bob Dylan]
And wouldn't you know, this Dylan cover was contributed to Sweetheart 2005 by fellow New Pornographer Neko Case.

Can't wait to find out what other covers and artists show up on this '09 compilation. Come February, I suppose I'll just have to stop by a Starbucks for a new CD... how peculiar.

If you were confuzzled by today's post title, then you haven't seen this.

4 comments:

boyhowdy said...

Oh, man -- you just discovered the Sweetheart compilations? I've been mining them for a while; let me know if you need me to re-up my own older valentine posts so you can re-cover the bulk of them. Also good for valentines day: the five year set of Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri valentines duets covers albums -- all free on their website.

Fongolia said...

Yeah, I was definitely out of the loop on these ones. Any idea how many compilations there are in the series? My googling only turns up 2004, 2005, and next year's.

boyhowdy said...

Only the two, far as I can tell. My father had both -- he's cool like that.

Anonymous said...

That "literal" Take-On-Me video is the find of my week. Heelarious!

Thanks.