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Genre-bending Cover Songs
Cover songs are increasingly blurring borders. Indie rockers are doing teen hits, bookish singer-songwriters covering R&B Casanovas, lounge singers covering heavy metal. Even the occasional celebrity gets into the fray (pictured). On today's show: behind the latest trends in cross-genre cover songs. Also: Live music from one of England's brightest young troubadours, the Mercury Prize-nominated singer-songwriter Laura Marling.
Enter Soundcheck’s songwriting contest! Your lyrics could be selected by our Grammy Award-winning judge and set to music by New York-area musicians. Click here for rules and more details.
Cross-genre covers
As musical boundaries erode in the digital age, cover songs are becoming ever more farfetched – from indie boys covering teen starlets, to lounge lizards covering metalheads, to bookish singer-songwriters covering R&B Casanovas. Blender magazine editor and Slate.com contributor Jonah Weiner joins us to talk about this “thorny tangle of value judgments, power dynamics, and aesthetic agendas.”
Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on the art of the cover song
Extraordinary Renditions - The problem of cross-genre covers
Laura Marling live
Eighteen-year-old folkie Laura Marling aims to join a crowded field of young, female British songwriters that includes Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Adele and Amy Winehouse. On her full-length debut, "Alas, I Cannot Swim," Marling does more than keep her head above water, buoyed by rapid-fire confessional lyrics and a voice that can hang with any of her British sisters. Or brothers. She joins us for a live performance.
The Musical Power of Bhutan Monks
Thirteen elaborately garbed and dagger-wielding Monks from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan are in New York City for a weighty mission: a week-long "cleansing" of various city plazas and parks. Joining us to explain is Lam Pema, one of the monks, and Tim McHenry, from the Rubin Museum of Art.
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Go behind the scenes!
Find out what John Schaefer and the Soundcheck staff have to say about recent segments on the show. Plus, watch videos from in-studio performances.
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Introducing our Video Contest
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John Schaefer gives the lowdown on Soundcheck's music video challenge with the Fiery Furnaces.
In Studio: Angel Deradoorian
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The 22-year-old multi-instrumentalist performs live in our studio.
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Cucu Diamantes Performs Amor Cronico
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Cucu Diamantes went from a tough childhood in Havana, Cuba, to an art school in Rome to underground New York City, where she co-founded the Latin alternative band Yerba Buena.
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In Studio: Stephanie McKay
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The local singer-songwriter performs "Jackson Avenue," a nostalgic toast to her childhood in the South Bronx.
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In Studio: The Decemberists
The Portland, Ore., band's latest album, "The Hazards of Love," is a concept album with a mythological flair. They joined Soundcheck to play live for a studio audience in WNYC's Greene Space.
Sound Off
Soundcheck
Throughout May, Soundcheck presents “Sound Off” a Friday series on the many aspects of noise in music and our lives. The series -- which coincides with “Better Hearing and Speech Month” -- looks at issues like New York’s noisiest neighborhoods, the latest research on iPods and hearing loss, and what happens when noise becomes a musical ingredient.
