Discovered Covered

Submitted by Mike Beaton on 6 February 2015 - 11:08pm

Cover:

Artist:

Daniel Johnston

album-ID:

a_162

Nationality:

USA

Year:

2 004

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

My Life is Starting Over Again (Teenage Fanclub with Jad Fair)*Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievance (Clem Snide)*Impossible Love (Gordon Gano)*Living Life (Eels)*Walking the Cow (TV on the Radio)*Good Morning You (The Rabbit)*Sorry Entertainer (Calvin Johnson)*Devil Town (Bright Eyes)*Dream Scream (Death Cab for Cutie)*True Love Will Find You in the End (Beck)*Go (Sparklehorse with The Flaming Lips)*Blue Clouds (Mercury Rev)*Love Not Dead (Thistle LLC)*Like a Monkey in the Zoo (Vic Chesnutt)*Dead Lovers Twisted Heart (Starlight Mints)*Story of an Artist (M. Ward)*The Sun Shines Down on Me (Guster)*King Kong (Tom Waits)*My Life Is Starting Over Again*Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Your Grievience*Impossible Love*Living Life*Walking The Cow*Good Morning You*Sorry Entertainer*Devil Town*Dream Scream*True Love Will Find You In The End*Go*Blue Clouds*Love Not Dead*Like A Monkey In The Zoo*Dead Lovers Twisted Heart*Story Of An Artist*The Sun Shines Down On Me*King Kong*Rock This Town

Length-in-mins:

133

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_63

Now-num:

2 015

Spotify-URL:

0AyNLSCPqEcFvqP1wnculi

Short-title:

discoveredCovered

nominator-ID:

u_25

Meeting-date:

Saturday, 28 March 2015

MusicBrainz-URL:

e8dff7fe-0ef4-3f6d-950e-66ca0393f5c5

Wikipedia-URL:

The_Late_Great_Daniel_Johnston:_Discovered_Covered

Spotify-link-type:

album

Discogs-URL:

master/view/213085

Allmusic-URL:

the-late-great-daniel-johnston-discovered-covered-mw0000166536

rdio-URL:

The_Late_Great_Daniel_Johnston_Discovered_Covered

code

Some global variables used across pages

code

this is code for each album page, to be hidden

review-form data

guest-list data

108

109

117

reviewers-IDs data

-25-

-1-

-14-

-2-

-13-

90

reviewed by

Mike Beaton

True Love (Of This Album) Will Find You In The End

5-6-8-9-10-11-12-13

18

I like this album a lot. To me, I don’t think Daniel Johnston should be listened to as an ‘issues’ artist. Either you like his music or you don’t. If you do then, as with all groups, get into the back story if you’d like to. If you don’t like the music, just leave it. I do understand that, for those in the know, Daniel Johnston is – if anything – better known for his mental health issues that for his music. But really, I don’t think he’s asking for the sympathy vote; and if he is, then I don’t think he should be: I really don’t think he needs it.

Personally, I was introduced to this album as ‘a set of covers, done by some well-known bands, of some guy who wrote some good songs which were only discovered after he died young’. That’s completely wrong, of couse – although it’s an understandable mistake! – because Daniel Johnston is alive and kicking; the album title, and it’s cover photography, are some kind of conceit. But it’s how I listened to the album, and I don’t think it’s a bad way of getting a reasonably objective view of the music. And my reasonably objective (or so I would like to think) view, is that this is a set of very good covers, of a set of very good (simple, but good) pop songs. The style, I guess, is Americana-tinged indie pop. That suits me just fine. If it’s not your bag, move on. If it is your bag, dive in and enjoy – because for you, I think, you’ll find that this album is a keeper.

I have to admit that, even on it’s own terms, there are almost four (count ’em!) albums here. Not only are there Daniel Johnston’s originals of all the songs, on disc 2, as well as the (for me, much more enjoyable) cover versions on disc 1. But the songs themselves split into two distinct types – the album (both discs: originals and covers) starts with some rather slow, grindy tracks, only a couple of which are really my bag. And each album – original and covers – ends up the same way. But, for me at least, the album is lifted well above mediocrity by the upbeat central core (tracks 5 to 13, approximately). There are some corkers in here. Walking the Cow (cover by TV on the Radio) and Good Morning You (cover by The Rabbit) are great. Love Not Dead (cover by Thrisle) is just like a lost Blondie track, and there is nothing wrong at all with that.

For me, the stylistic core of the album really consists of the three tracks by Death Cab for Cutie, Sparklehorse with The Flaming Lips, and Mercury Rev. These three tracks work for me – and then some. So once again, if you like the lightly psychedlic, indie, Americana pop which you can expect from these groups, then dive in. There’s a coherent core of a good – nearly great – album here. I haven’t even mentioned the covers by Beck (True Love Will Find You In The End – some lovely lyrics, on a track which could easily be a composition by the later Beck himself; of course later Beck is not a a patch on earlier Beck, but that’s another story and no complaint about this album!), or Eels (Living Life – nothing special here, but again it’s a perfectly competent Eels track, it just happens to have been written by someone else).

There’s a Tom Waits cover on here too, but it’s not my bag at all: it comes at the very end of the album (tracks 15-18) which unfortunately (for this reviewer, at least) descend back into a downbeat, dirgy, grindyness. The album would have had a perfect ending – downbeat, but not overly so – if it had stopped with Track 14, Like a Monkey in a Zoo. But that really is a minor quibble. I’ve known this album for two or three years (although it’s been out for quite a lot longer than that), and I’m sticking with it.

Do I like the originals disc as much as the covers? No. Would I buy another album by Daniel Johnston himself (as opposed to another covers album)? Probably not. Would I go and see Daniel Johnston live? Absolutely; because this guy can write and play (in a way which I think would work much better live, and is probably why he has the fan base he has) very good indie American pop.

By the way… if anybody can get to the bottom of who the for-goodness-sakes Thrisle (the cover artist for Track 13, the Blondie-style one) are, then I would really like to know – and hear – more. Have a Google. You will – I predict – get very confused indeed! If you can understand what on Earth is going on – and I really can’t – then please, let me know!
65

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

They thought he was a monster but he was a king

10-11-13-16-23-25-29-34

4-6-8-12-21

I think it is a fascinating idea, irregardless of who the artist is, to have an album of cover versions, along with the originals to compare them with. Some do really sound great matches for the people who have covered them, I’m thinking particularly of the Beck and M Ward songs, artists who I really enjoy anyway. Some tracks are better on one disc, some are better on the other, but you get more of a perspective on them either way. And, as much as some of the artists have really captured something in these songs, his fragile, pained voice I find generally more engaging than the cover artists’ singing.

He reminds me of a few artists in various places but the obvious one for me was a latter-day Syd Barrett – a shambolic, troubled character, who is suffering too much and still amusing us, not necessarily always deliberately. I think that was an interesting tension throughout: this kind of fascinating, unusual, amateurish sound with this obvious determined drive to convey a deeply personal and sad autobiography. This best example of this, I thought, was Like A Monkey in a Zoo, and it was actually the Vic Chesnutt version, rather than the original, that conveyed this so well. You’ve got to admire his honesty, the brutally painful lyric about him being an object of ridicule and contempt – a theme he also explores on King Kong, which feels like an allegory about himself, a great way to sum up his work. These are lyrical ideas that are working well here, but musically these might be two of the weaker songs.

It’s not to say there aren’t good musical ideas here, there are, but I think it would generally feel overall a bit of an ordinary and even a weak collection if you ignored his characterful and imaginative words.
53

reviewed by

Richard Norbury
50

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

The Madcap Laughs

Early 90s mentally unstable singer. I get the impression the allure of the damaged artist is at work here, as the songs, for me, do not sound mental enough.

The covers are a mixed bag, at worst sounding like a bad surf festival band, at best giving DJ's rough original tunes a nice polish.

DJ seems overly obsessed with monkeys.
40

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

5-9-23-25-27

10-12-18-36

The original tracks CD takes a lot of work at first, but eventually the songs do shine through, and there's some good stuff there. However the rawness of the recordings and his unusual vocal style does make it a hard listen.

The covers side is a disappointment. I feel that the songs take the bands out of their comfort zones and the result is a rather odd mismatch of tracks, where you'd only notice any common theme if you were already a DJ fan. I like a few of these artists but don't enjoy their contributions on this album.

Ultimately I'd rather hear the original side, but it's not something I'll be rushing to put on again.