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Soundcheck

Monday, September 15, 2008
  • Scarlett Johansson

    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.

Laura Marling's Myspace page

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.

Introducing our Video Contest

Soundcheck

John Schaefer gives the lowdown on Soundcheck's music video challenge with the Fiery Furnaces.

In Studio: Angel Deradoorian

Soundcheck

The 22-year-old multi-instrumentalist performs live in our studio.

Cucu Diamantes Performs Amor Cronico

Soundcheck

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.

In Studio: Stephanie McKay

Soundcheck

The local singer-songwriter performs "Jackson Avenue," a nostalgic toast to her childhood in the South Bronx.

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.