Staple Singers - Slippery People

What makes a good cover? I’m not sure if there’s a golden rule, but the answer here lies an irresistible combination of factors:

• The original version of Slippery People was an excellent song, yet not widely known. This allowed the Staple Singers to make it their own

• The original version was by Talking Heads, at the time, considered one of the best groups on the planet. The Staple Singers gained credibility by referencing a very hip band. A potentially risky strategy but the end result sounded like the record the Talking Heads wanted to make if they’d been as cool as the Staple Singers

• A successful attempt by the Staple Singers to adapt their gospel-soul sound to a contemporary electro-disco. Again, this could have gone badly wrong. It didn’t

• The art of surprise: were the Staple Singers still going? And who would have thought that Staple Singers would even be aware of Talking Heads? Part of the pleasure of this record lies in the unlikelihood of its very existence. But then in their cover of Al Green’s Take Me To The River, Talking Heads had tapped into that same reserve

• Oh, and it’s a brilliant vocal performance by Mavis Staples, the production packs an infectious punch and you can dance to it.

Panda Bear – Person Pitch

Swathed in reverb, Panda Bear’s music sounds distant, like it’s coming from some fabulous party down the hall or from a transistor radio tuned to an obscure yet magical frequency.

Panda Bear is the alias of Lisbon-based Noah Lennox, part of the Animal Collective, a loose group of musicians who’ve recorded with Vashti Bunyan and Devendra Banhart among others.

Person Pitch is sunshine pop recalling the life-affirming joy and innocence of the Beach Boys, but also their miraculous spirit of adventure. It’s one of those wonderful records that doesn’t sound like anything else.

Here’s Bros from Person Pitch, Pitchfork’s album of 2007.

Chris Bell – I Am The Cosmos

I played this collection the other day having not heard it for some time, and was blown away. For many years the title track has been a staple of compilation CDs I’ve made for people, but I’d forgotten how good many of the other tracks are. In particular, “Look Up” is a beautiful melody, while “You and Your Sister” is, to quote American writer Scott E Miller, simply one of the best pop songs ever.

Listening to the first Big Star album, #1 Record, it’s hard to hear where Alex Chilton started and Chris Bell began. Both have a clear love of the Beatles, jangly guitars, but with a dark melancholy that sounds all the sadder in the light of the personal traumas not unrelated to Big Star’s commercial failure.

It’s also hard to distinguish Bell’s solo songs collected on I Am The Cosmos from his Big Star material, especially since Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens play on some of the songs on I Am The Cosmos. They were recorded between his departure from Big Star - in 1973 after #1 Record flopped - and Bell’s premature death in a car crash in 1978. They were recorded sporadically, his career hampered by abuse of booze and drugs.

These songs never saw a commercial release until Rykodisc issued this CD in 1992. It was the first CD I ever bought. I’d held out against getting a CD player but when this was released (not on vinyl) I knew my luddite days were over.

The Free Design – Songs for Very Important People

I heard of this via the Guardian’s 1,000 Albums to Hear Before You Die – a rare example of a list that avoids the obvious choices and is clearly compiled by genuine enthusiasts.

The Free Design were the brainchild of Chris Dedrick. With his brother Bruce and sister Sandy they started playing Peter, Paul and Mary songs but somehow ended up playing beautifully arranged close harmony pop.

There's an undoubted Brian Wilson influence (not least because The Free Design are singing siblings), but it's more controlled, less dark. I don't know much about Dedric (though I mean to find out more) but he doesn't sound troubled or frightened.

With Felix’s arrival I’m seeking out music for children, so please post a comment if you can recommend any good albums.

The genius of Mike Nesmith

As a kid, it was pretty obvious to me that Mike Nesmith was the coolest of the Monkees. Peter Tork – dopey; Davy Jones – vain and effete; Mickey Dolenz – the funniest. Wooly-capped Nesmith came across as quiet and thoughtful.

In my teens, I got The Monkees’ Greatest Hits, a Music For Pleasure budget release. There was a Nesmith track on there, Listen To The Band, that sat uneasily among all the Help! homages. Country-tinged, but with brass, and psychedelic effects to boot. What was going on?

Then a couple of years ago I picked up a copy of Magnetic South in a great used record and book shop in Howarth in Yorkshire. What a revelation. Nesmith is a beautiful singer. As a songwriter, he is innovative and witty – with a beautiful melodic ear (witness the glorious “Joanne”). His adventures in country rock sound less ego-driven than contemporaries the Byrds and Gram Parsons, presumably because he was struggling to be taken seriously because of his boy-band past. But he’s every inch their equal. All his pioneering albums with the First National Band are superlative.

Here’s Frank Zappa and Nesmith in a weird clip found on YouTube: