Kurt Cobain's guitar from Nirvana Unplugged is being sold

"The guitar Kurt Cobain played during Nirvana’s famed MTV Unplugged in New York concert is headed to auction with a starting estimate of $1 million," Rolling Stone reports. He played a used Martin acoustic guitar from 1959.

During Unplugged, Kurt Cobain told the audience about how he wanted to buy a guitar that belonged to Lead Belly, calling him "my favorite performer." (Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic joked that the band would pass around a "donation basket.") Here’s the Lead Belly song Nirvana played at the end of Unplugged, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" I love the moment at 4:50 when the music stops near the end of the song, and while Cobain is catching his breath he has a look in his eyes as if he's suddenly grasped the whole weight of human existence.




Here's Lead Belly's version of that traditional folk song (also known as "In the Pines"):

Woman in the Box

Here's "Man in the Box," from Alice in Chains' debut album, Facelift (1990), sung by Gabriela Gunčíková, who changes "man" to "woman":




Original:

The Beatles' Revolver turns 50

50 years ago today, on August 5, 1966, the Beatles released Revolver, an artistic breakthrough for the band which many would call the greatest rock album of all time.

1. The first song on the album, "Taxman," is by George Harrison, but Paul McCartney deserves a lot of credit for both the classic bassline and the manic lead guitar. Paul's guitar solo (which, unusually, is heard twice in the song) seems to have been influenced by George's growing interest in Indian classical music, and foreshadows the vocal melismas in George's next song on the album, "Love You To" (the last word of each verse in that song — "meeeeee" — evokes the middle of the "Taxman" guitar solo).




2. The Beatles had previously used a string quartet in "Yesterday," but the second song on Revolver, "Eleanor Rigby," was the first time they used no instruments other than strings and voice. It's also one of the earliest Beatles songs to focus on specific characters beyond the standard personal pronouns (you/I/she/he), paving the way for "Penny Lane," for instance. With its themes of loneliness, religion, and death, "Eleanor Rigby" was a shockingly weighty and profound song for a band that used to be best known for teen-oriented pop songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand."






3. The Beatles used backwards guitar for the first time in John Lennon's "I'm Only Sleeping."




4. George's second song on the album, "Love You To" wasn't the Beatles' first use of sitar (which was in "Norwegian Wood"), but it was their first song with only Indian instruments and voice.




5. John was generally very critical of Paul, but they both agreed that "Here, There, and Everywhere" was one of Paul's best songs.




6. "Yellow Submarine" — a song so colorful and childlike it gave rise to an animated movie.




7. "She Said, She Said" features a brilliant use of shifting time signatures: the song starts in the standard rock 4/4 (when singing about the present), then switches to a 3/4 waltz once he sings about "when I was a boy . . ." I don't have a link to the album version (I assume you own it or can stream it), but Ringo Starr's drumming on this song is some of his best.




8. John's acidic "She Said, She Said" is nicely juxtaposed with Paul's ebullience in the next song on Revolver, "Good Day Sunshine."




9. George and Paul brilliantly harmonized their guitar parts on John's "And Your Bird Can Sing."




10. "For No One" is one of my very favorite Beatles songs. Paul perfectly fused lyrics to music here. The slow, methodical chord changes in the verse reflect the singer's dwelling on the breakup and trying to analyze things from every possible perspective. Then the emotional intensity is heightened by the shift to a minor key in the chorus ("and in her eyes you see nothing . . .").




11. In his book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties, Ian MacDonald calls "Dr. Robert" "one of The Beatles' most incisive pieces." MacDonald explains:

Concerning a New York doctor who habituated his socialite clients to narcotics by mixing methedrine with vitamin shots, the song shifts key evasively, stabilising only in its middle eight — an evangelical sales-pitch backed by pious harmonium and warbling choirboys. Lennon's caustic vocal . . . is matched by McCartney's huckstering harmony in fourths ('he's a man you must believe') and by Harrison's double-tracked guitar, with its unique blend of sitar and country-and-western.

12. "I Want to Tell You" is George's third and last song on Revolver. George usually had a maximum of two songs per album; this is the only time George got three songs on a normal-length Beatles album. (The White Album had four, but it was a double album.)




13. "Got to Get You Into My Life" is an outstanding Paul song in a Motown vein.






14. The last song on Revolver, "Tomorrow Never Knows," is one of the most startling in the Beatles' whole catalog. The basic song is unusually simple for the Beatles: there's just one melody (no vocal harmonies), one drum beat, and two chords repeated over and over. That kind of minimalism was rare in 1966. The lyrics are the most blatantly drug-inspired of any Beatles song: "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream . . . Listen to the color of your dream . . ."

What's truly ground-breaking about the recording is the tape loops which each Beatle made at home and brought to the studio to be added to the mix. Ian MacDonald lists the five loops (most of which were speeded up): (1) a seagull-like sound, which is actually Paul laughing; (2) an orchestra playing a chord; (3) a Mellotron (a precursor to the synthesizer) played on the "flute" setting; (4) a Mellotron played on the "strings" setting; and (5) a sitar. The song also includes a backwards, cut-up version of the guitar solo from "Taxman." MacDonald observes that the loops are played "in cross rhythm, invit[ing] the audience to lose its time-sense in a brilliantly authentic evocation of the LSD experience."




Here are the original tape loops in isolation, one after another (not as they're heard on the record):

"Billie Jean" versions

Winterplay:




Aloe Blacc:




The Civil Wars:




Michael Jackson:

Music Friday: "Summertime"

It's apparently the most covered song ever. This New York Times blog post gives us 18 very different versions. My favorite is Norah Jones:



My favorites after that would be Miles Davis and Billie Holiday (the original). The worst might be Janis Joplin.

"The House of the Rising Sun" over the years

Leadbelly, 1944:



Frijid Pink, 1970:



Old computer equipment, 2011:

Music Friday: Walk Like an Egyptian

Played by bluegrass group the Cleverlys:



The Bangles' original:

A children's chorus sings "Lisztomania" by Phoenix

That's the PS 22 Chorus (via Cover Song Archive, via Metafilter).



Did you notice the word that was censored for the kids?

Music Friday: Come On Eileen

I'm glad to hear this string quartet interpretation of "Come On Eileen," with all parts played by the same person ("Nick"). The music alone, with its dramatic key and tempo changes, expresses a level of joy that transcends the song's "Gee, you sure are attractive" lyrics.



Does it also work as a ska song, sung by a woman? Does it ever!



(Save Ferris is the band.)

Of course, Dexys Midnight Runners' original is still great:

Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" on ukulele

It's on Jake Shimabukuro's new album, Peace Love Ukulele.

(Via Metafilter, via 3 Quarks Daily.)

Covers

The Onion's A.V. Club got a bunch of bands to cover songs from the '60s through the '90s (via). A lot of them are from the '80s. Some of the covers haven't been posted yet, but the song titles have been announced. (I'm looking forward to seeing what's done with Nirvana's "Sliver" and Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy.")

Unfortunately, each one starts with a minute or more of ads for beer and coffee. Also, the announcer has an oddly unenthusiastic delivery that seems to be popular on the web. For some reason, people announcing things on TV go completely over the top, but this would seem inappropriate on a website. Does sitting closer to a screen somehow make an audience more conscious of people overexerting their voices?

Anyway, as far as the music, here's a good one (although you might want to mute the volume on your computer till the band starts): Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, covering . . .




. . . Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Enter Sandman, smoothly

That's Andy Rehfeldt -- a self-proclaimed YouTube celebrity -- playing all the instruments, with only the vocals from Metallica's performance of their great song "Enter Sandman."

The basic gimmick is simple: replace a distorted guitar tone with a clean one, and switch the key to the relative major of the original. But the execution is impressive. Here's a disco version by the same guy.

Music Friday: 4 more covers

For the third Friday in a row, here are 4 adventurous covers. (You can go to all of them by clicking the "covers" tag.)

9. Ben Folds covers...



...The Postal Service.




10. Tori Amos covers...



...Nirvana.




11. Dr. Fox's Old Timey String Band covers...



MGMT. (Blogged previously.)




12. Brad Mehldau covers...



...Radiohead.

Music Friday: 4 more covers

Continuing with the theme from last week, here are 4 more covers, each one followed by the original.

5. The Project (info) covers...



...Tchaikovsky.




6. Ben Gibbard (of Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie fame) covers...



...Michael Jackson.



7. Hanne Hukkelberg (blogged previously) covers...



...the Kinks.




8. M. Ward (featuring Zooey Deschanel) covers...



...Buddy Holly.

Music Friday: 4 covers

For some reason, hearing two different versions of a song side by side usually makes me appreciate both performances more. Here are some particularly adventurous and fruitful covers, followed by the original artist.

1. Mercedes Landazuri (info) covers...



...the Beach Boys.




2. The Futureheads cover...



...Kate Bush.




3. Cake covers...



...Gloria Gaynor.




4. K.T. Tunstall covers...



...the Jackson 5.

Music Friday: John Lennon and Regina Spektor, Real Love

I love how she dramatically changes the chords and melody while staying true to the song:



Regina Spektor covered "Real Love" as part of a Lennon tribute album done as part of the "Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur."