Customer Reviews

It Feels So Good When I Stop

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You know how it is. One of your favorite musicians decides to do a cover album of some of their favorite songs and you get excited. This is going to be so cool! But so many times you are disappointed at the results. Either the song selection was weak or they hewed too close to the source song or went way too far wacky and the song was unrecognizable.

This album does not disappoint. He introduced me to songs I had not heard before which is the second job of a good cover album. first to entertain; second, to inform. Joe Pernice does an excellent version of "Chevy Van", a song I never really cared for before. I think that is the highest complement you can give a cover album is to say they changed how you feel about a particular song.

Albums of cover songs are usually a tricky proposition, especially coming from an artist who is himself a peerless pop songwriter. Complicating things further, this also serves as the "soundtrack" to a novel. That said, this is a light, easy listen, even if it isn't the traffic-halting event that a new Pernice Brothers album would be. Standouts include the white-boy soul of "I'm Your Puppet," the Tom T. Hall old-school country chestnut "That's How I Got to Memphis" and the Dream Syndicate's crunchy jangle-rock classic "Tell Me When It's Over," none of which necessarily re-invent the originals, but are captured in a spirit of fun and reverence. Only the Mary Poppins tune feels like a throwaway, and though the instrumental "Black Smoke (No Pope)" (credited to the fictional band, The Young Accuser, from the novel) doesn't really go anywhere (neither did the fictional band), that's sort of the point, when you take the album's purpose as soundtrack into account. The songs chosen reveal the inspiration for Pernice's own muse, ranging from 1970's AM schmaltz through post-punk jangle to countrypolitan song-stories, and certainly underscore his ability to recognize an ace tune when he hears one.