This is described as The Ultimate Covers Album – a bold statement and not entirely accurate. Heroes is a collaboration between legendary musicians and contemporary artists, with proceeds donated to the War Child project which works to protect children in conflict-riven countries. The “icons” were asked to select a favourite song from their back catalogue and also to choose the act they’d most like to cover it. The collection certainly provides some interesting interpretations of classic tracks, but, like any covers project, the ones that don’t make the grade can make you feel like you’ve wandered into the local pub and are being subjected to the neighbourhood band beating your favourite song to death with a tyre iron.
Heroes opens with Bob Dylan’s ‘Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat’, covered by Beck. It’s a great start: a blistering rock version of a Dylan standard and one of the boy Hansen’s finer recent moments. Unfortunately it’s followed by the Scissor Sisters’ abysmal rendition of Roxy Music’s ‘Do The Strand’, illustrating perfectly the “sublime to the ridiculous” feel of the project.
Still, some of the collaborations are right on the money: Peaches seems like the ideal choice for Iggy Pop’s ‘Search And Destroy’ and it’s entirely obvious why Brian Wilson chose Rufus Wainwright to croon a medley from Smile. There are others that are less inspired. Why Paul McCartney asked Duffy to do ‘Live And Let Die’ is a mystery. When her polite, breathy voice meekly sings the lyric “you’ve got to give the other fella hell”, it’s not so much an urgent imperative as a polite suggestion.
Stand-outs include Elbow’s re-imagining of ‘Running To Stand Still’ by U2; Yeah Yeah Yeah’s version of The Ramones’ ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’; Lily Allen’s radically overhauled ‘Straight To Hell’, which features its Clash author Mick Jones on backing vocals; and TV On The Radio doing David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ in a Brooklyn art-rock stylee. However, Estelle and Franz Ferdinand stray into aforementioned pub rock territory with their respective renditions of ‘Superstitious’ and ‘Call Me’, and Hot Chip’s take on ‘Transmission’ is lukewarm
at best.
Key Track: Beck - 'Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat'