Aging reggae lifer Little Roy hit the studio to reinterpret ten Nirvana tracks that were largely foreign to him, and the result is the best covers album I’ve ever heard. Photo: Steve Gullick/BattleforSeattle.com
Nirvana’s Nevermind was recently re-released in a super-duper-deluxe box set celebrating the landmark album’s 20th anniversary. I hope someone at Universal frequents this site and sends me a review copy, because as much as I’d like to pore over those 4 CDs + DVD, I just ain’t shelling out the $140. Kurt probably wouldn’t have approved anyway.
I’ll tell you what he would have approved of, though: Battle for Seattle. At the behest of one “Prince Fatty,” aging reggae lifer Little Roy hit the studio to reinterpret ten Nirvana tracks that were largely foreign to him, and the result is the best covers album I’ve ever heard. So many musicians make half-assed, novelty attempts at the “Genre-A-covers-Genre-B” thing, but done right, it really is high art. It’s about attaining an uncanny level of empathy for a songwriter, identifying which bits of their recordings feed that feeling, and amplifying them. The rest comes easy, and beautifully.
Cobain’s story is nothing if not well-documented, and for that reason, plenty of people have gradually lost the ability to understand who he was. Kurt was a consummate human, impossibly tender and thoughtful, and one needs only to delve into his songs to grasp that. This is all Little Roy did for Battle for Seattle, and that is precisely why it works. A sweet old Jamaican fellow has looked right through one of the biggest legacies in modern music and embraced the genius and the humanity of the songwriting. He truly visits everything from Kurt’s perspective (even while covering a cover) and it gives the old lyrics and melodies wonderful new life. It’s quite clear that each song was approached from a place of love and respect, and Nirvana fans will no doubt feel a sense of déjà vu as each nuance recalls the celebrated tributes from the band’s own MTV Unplugged concert.
The record is really great and if you didn’t get it then you would be a dick.
Don’t Be A Dick: http://www.battleforseattle.com/
