Friday, October 26, 2018

Forgotten Fridays: Freedom Of Choice (Yesterday's New Wave Hits As Performed By Today's Stars)

Forgotten Fridays is an occasional feature here at If It’s Too Loud... where we go back and find the lost records of our glory days. We played these on our college radio shows, put them on countless mix tapes, and then forgot they existed. We go back and remind you of their existence, and help decide if they were any good.

I really miss these cover song compilations from the 90's. Back in 1992, Freedom Of Choice (Yesterday's New Wave Hits As Performed By Today's Stars) was put together to as a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. As the title says, it's "Yesterday's New Wave Hits As Performed By Today's Stars." Well, by stars they mean indie rock stars, and this one does have some of 1992's finest indie rockers contributing. It also has a bunch of artists I've never heard of outside of this compilation, but I'll focus on what I find to be the highlights. 


I'm always going to lean towards any contribution from Sonic Youth. Here they cover Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi." It includes Sonic Youth's typical noise, but it also sounds like they're having a blast with this song. Sonic Youth is my favorite band of all time, but they don't tend to have a sense of fun in most of their songs. This one is fun. 

Mudhoney does a remarkably faithful cover of Elvis Costello & The Attractions's "Pump It Up." Mark Arm sounds much more like Elvis Costello than Mark Arm. Yo La Tengo covers Blondie's "Dreaming" to absolute perfection. Superchunk does DEVO's "Girl U Want" which sounds exactly like you want Superchunk covering DEVO to sound. The Muffs sound like the band meant to record "Rock & Roll Girl" (no insult meant to The Beat).

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