People Covering Songs I Love... With Bad Veins Takin' On Apples In Stereo

 I was never an Apples In Stereo fan. I always respected them but I never awaited their next release with fervid anticipation, I never bought their vinyl even though I already had the CD, and I never gazed upon their album art and contemplated what I could fish out of their graphics that would make a solid Apples tattoo. I think there was a cross section of indie kids that coexisted peacefully along side me while I grew up and they loved Apples In Stereo. I do, however, think they were a little younger than me and maybe that's the problem here. I was at just the right age for fellow Elephant Six-ers Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control but perhaps just a few months shy of freaking out about Apples In Stereo.

Regardless, when it was announced that the latest Apples LP would feature covers... Of Apples  songs... By artists I loved... I kinda spazzed.

Apples In Stereo - Benefits Of Lying

"Benefits of Lying" is one of those songs that sincerely makes me question why exactly it is that I never cared more for Apples in their heyday. The more I listen to it, the more I love "Benefits of Lying", with its Beatles-esque overtones and slight tempo changes backed by a lovely chorus of infectious "la's". Couple these wonderful bits of Brit pop-slash-Jon Brion-esque indie pop bliss with the painfully earnest lyrics and you've got yourself a winner. 

People who know me know that I have the habit of basing my like or dislike of a song on where it would fit on the soundtrack, were my life a movie. Personally, "Benefits of Lying" seems like a great choice for that exact moment of realization when it hit me that the guy who I've spent months of my life convincing myself is "just a friend" is not even close to "just a friend". Then there could be a nice montage of my interactions with him juxtaposed with all the crazy things I do to try to get over him.

Of course, what might one up the original for this scenario would be Bad Veins' "Benefits of Lying" cover.

Bad Veins - Benefits of Lying (With Your Friend)

Bad Veins are one of those bands that I almost hate to love because they're so poppy (Their disc often gets mistaken for The Killers by my less-musically-knowledgeable roommates) but damn! They're so good! For a brief list of things that make Bad Veins "so good", please look to the next paragraph:

1. Accessible music that retains it's indie sensabilities. 2. Benjamin Davis's voice never ceases to be completely heartbreaking. 3. Davis's penchant for the grandiose can outdrama The Killers in my book any day and that's a very good thing. 4. The duo's use of the reel to reel player (Irene, she produces backing tracks) is gimmicky, yes, but they're well aware of how gimmicky it is and they draw attention to this. As Davis once said, it's like them making fun of themselves before anyone else can get a chance to.

I honestly wasn't so sure how I'd feel about Bad Veins' take on "Benefits of Lying". Usually, these People Covering Songs I Love articles take a cover song I've been listening to for YEARS. This track, however, is one I only just heard, despite knowing of it's existence for a while. My immediate reaction was that whatever Bad Veins was about to do to Apples In Stereo probably shouldn't be done. Then... I heard it.

Davis and Sebastien Schultz, Bad Veins' other half, make "Benefits of Lying" into a straight up Bad Veins song, so much so that when I linked fellow RFC contributor and Bad Veins fan Sara Jacobsen to the track, she was shocked to find out it wasn't an original. And personally, I think that's the best thing about it.

Comments

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[Supra Skytop]

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