Poptones.co.uk's Cover of the Week

The Magic Numbers cover of the week!  Walking through Virgin Record Stores yesterday I bought the Magic Numbers new two-for-one—minus the cynical packaging of the record (badge and a tacky sleeve) ... yet, minus the usual litany of complaints against the music industry—the reason for this is their cover of Crazy in Love .. which is actually pretty damn good.

When indie acts cover pop hits its usually with a snicker and an embarrassment—like Travis covering Britney Spears ... or the Eels covering TLC.  Its usually a lapse into the irony, the ironic, the ‘OH GOD JESUS NO .. WE’VE GOT ANOTHER IRONY O’D ON OUR HANDS DOCTOR’... very few actually surpass the irony and when they do it straight on—you begin to realise that underneath the irony, the chances of a good cover, is whether a song is good and wheither that song can adapt to the ch-ch-changes.  When the Magic Numbers cover of Beyonce ‘Crazy in Love’ surfaced on the ‘net and now on the two-track single, it demonstrates that above all the song in itself is a great pop song—easily adapted to the sunshine Mamas and the Papas two-part harmonies and the easy-cali-finger picked chords of the ‘Numbers so that it transcends its status of a Beyonce song and makes another case for it being a classic song.

Very few songs actually transcend—the ‘Numbers cover is reminscent of Tim Buckley’s take on the ‘Keep Me Hanging On’, in which Buckley mournfully bleeds the song for all its worth until you are left utterly drained.  Its interesting when you compare and contrast it too its original—the orginal is an urgent pop hit.  Yet, in Buckley’s hands it becomes a mournful love song.  Or when the Afghan Whigs took on Keep Me Hanging On’ ... changing it into an emo-driven song of pure desperation.  Whilst the Magic Numbers don’t go for extremes (there is only so much desperation you can partake in Similarly, the ‘Numbers cover of ‘Crazy in Love’ brings out the obsessive nature of ‘Crazy in Love’, instead of a cool pop ditty the song actually becomes an ‘Oh-oh, oh-oh, lets get a restraining order against the Magic Numbers’ type of thing.

However, that being said—there is a fairly useless cover version of ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ that tries to reach the pathos of The Smiths but fails ... why ... unlike their cover of Crazy in Love, The Magic Numbers play it straight and fail. 

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