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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.

Best Live Performances of 2008

Soundcheck

We revisit memorable in-studio performances from Toumani Diabaté, Cat Power, Regina Spektor, and others.

The Year in Music and Branding

Soundcheck

Pop music and advertising go together like peanut butter and jelly. Grey Group music director Josh Rabinowitz shares his picks for the best song picks and ad campaigns of 2008.

Critics Week

Soundcheck

Music writers look back at the year's best pop, rock, hip hop, classical, jazz, Latin and world albums. Plus: the worst music of the year and the best online music. Read our critics' lists here. And don't forget to cast your vote in our best-albums poll.

Noteworthy New York

Soundcheck

We have invited musicians and artists to help us select their favorite cultural destination in the neighborhood where they live. From parks and coffee shops to bowling alleys and museums, the options are as diverse as our group of contributors.