Spotlight: Nouvelle Vague
August 31st, 2005
Daily Tracks will return to normal tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you all about this great album I just got.
Last Friday (August 26), Dailysonic ran a piece about a French band called Nouvelle Vague who do bossa nova covers of new wave songs. Now, I know what you’re thinking… and you couldn’t be more wrong. These versions of some truly classic tunes are absolutely amazing.
I went to the band’s site and found that they didn’t offer any free downloads, but had a flash player where you could listen to their renditions of “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Guns of Brighton,” and “A Forest.” After listening to those, and poking around the web a bit, I found the two downloads below (courtesy of Salon and insound).
This was one of those times that after listening to the freebies for awhile, I absolutely had to have the the entire album. This is going to go down as one of my “best purchases of the year” without a doubt. All too often cover songs are just way too lame to really be worth a damn, and when someone tries to be clever and do them in some other style the problem only gets worse. That’s definitely not the case here.
The band even takes a huge risk with covering what may be the most covered 80’s standard ever, Modern English’s “I Melt With You.” Maybe it’s because I’ve been subjected to the original and bad covers for so long, but I swear… I like Nouvelle Vague’s version even better than the original.
The only weak point on the album is their version of Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.” The song was campy to begin with, and unfortunately, a bossa nova beat just makes it even more so. I have to admit, though, that it did make me chuckle, and I’m pretty sure that was the band’s intention.
Anyway, take a listen. These are sure not to disappoint:
The entire album is available for download from the iTunes Music Store, or on CD from insound.
