Few artists could sustain the sort of rarity scrounging posthumous repackaging treatment Jeff gets -- but naturally we've bought just about every boxed set/live show/remastered demo release mom Mary Guibert's put together (and then some she hasn't). But the tenth anniversary of Jeff's death approaches, a natural time for reflection on his tragically brief recording career -- and a natural time for another retrospective release. Naturally.
So on 5/22, one week prior to the 10th anniversary of Buckley's passing, Legacy will release Songs From Jeff Buckley, which liner note author David Fricke calls "the closest Jeff Buckley -- singer, songwriter, guitarist, seeker -- ever comes to having his own greatest-hits record."
The real bait for Buckley completists, though, is a who-knows-how-rare cover of the Smiths' "I Know It's Over," recorded for a radio program in April of '95 but edited out before broadcast. Fricke says it captures Jeff "spacewalking with elegance through the harrowing resignation of 'I Know It's Over,'" with which we shan't argue.
is out 5/22 on Legacy.
sounds like a cross between hallelujah and the drugs don't work. so there's that.
..
ok.
so this good looking dude died young.
can we please move on??
I'm sorry, but saying dumb things is not going to get me to visit your website. Buckley was alleged to have a 4 octave range, which by default gives you one hell of a voice.
i swear, it seems like half of the songs jeff ever sung include some reference to the sea or water.
"I'm sorry, but saying dumb things is not going to get me to visit your website. Buckley was alleged to have a 4 octave range, which by default gives you one hell of a voice."
>>Great, but he certainly didn't utilize it in this song.
I'd love to hear something else if you feel like recommending something.
anyone who can't appreciate jeff buckley is just a twat.
you're just a twat.
For anyone still interested, I'm fairly sure there's a Hallelujah/I Know its over medley out there. Try the Hype Machine.
Stereogum commenters: please be constructive.
I really like this site, but sometimes I wonder what kind of readership I'm associating myself with.
saying jeff buckley didn't have a voice is like saying dolly parton is flat chested.
nigga please.
Rochelle Nikita just admitted to not knowing much else, if any, of Jeff Buckley's songs, so it's his/her loss.
Jeff's music is so personal and beautiful that I don't need any blog commenter to tell me if it is good or bad.
jeff buckley doesn't have a voice?
do you even like radiohead?
i'm a bit more partial to the hallelujah/ i know it's over medley myself.
this post was intended for the longtime buckley fans, not those who are hearing him for the first time.
why would you judge the man by a radio cut he did in 95? a cover no less, c'mon.
I was gonna comment but Janitor Swirls took the words out of my mouth.
he/she really hit the nail on the head! (pun intended!!
)
he does a pretty impressive version of "the boy with the thorn in his side" too.
I still haven't listened to the second disc from Sketches for My Sweetheart..
. yet. I've owned it for 6 years (I think) and I still think the man had a good voice, crap songwriting skills (cf, Grace, Mystery White Boy, Sketches for My Sweetheart - all loaded with duff lyrics), and was mellifluous of guitar.
I just don't get why he was/is venerated to such an extent. Can someone please tell me why I don't like Jeff Buckley in the slightest? (Disparaging remarks will be ignored)
The best cover Jeff ever did was of 'The way young lovers do' in my opinion.
Infact, I'm going to go and listen to that right now. Amazing song.
Oh, just thought I'd add that there's a version of the cover in a German bootleg (24-02-95), and it's currently up on dimeadozen.
He has a voice, but he just murders the song. Somehow, he drains the vast majority of the emotion from it. The start's alright, but whenever he shifts he overdoes it quite a bit and ends up just sounding flat and strained.
Shame, too. I like the original quite a bit.
Everyone has to hear "Gunshot Glitter" by Buckley.
IT was a bonus track on the european release of sketches and it fucking blows the rest of it out of the water.
And to Rochelle..
.if you are going to post a link to your music blog along with every comment and want to attract people to it, you should probably:
a. recognize who Cat Stevens is and that he is not Matisyahu, and
b.
certainly have heard at least some of Jeff Buckleys music.
"a. recognize who Cat Stevens is and that he is not Matisyahu.
.."
Please tell me this didn't really happen.
Anyway, Rochelle if you want to check out Jeff Buckley for a better first impression try the "Grace" album.
HELLO? I KNOW Cat Stevens is not that other dude.
That's what I said - apparently somebody misconstrued it, although I don't know how. And thank you, Adam, for the recommendation.
AHEM, I specifically said Cat Stevens was NOT that Matisyahu dude.
.. Yusaf Islam, or whatever, was the name he changed to.
SO I don't know who misconstrued that.
Anyway, thank you, Adam, for the recommendation. I checked out some of his stuff that fans had uploaded to YouTube, and I like it a lot better.
He's much more talented than my first impression led me to believe.
Jeff Buckley was a beautiful man with a beautiful voice. That being said, this is old news.
I heard this cover years ago. He really excells at covers as some here have said already.
I still thing his version of "Kangaroo" (or "Kanga Roo," if you prefer) is quite lovely.
It sure is fun to see all the grumpy Jeff Buckley defenders come out in full fascist force to defend yet another shitty cover that's been unearthed.
It sure is fun to see all the Jeff Buckley detractors come out in full fascist force to deride yet another great cover that's been unearthed.
Anything Jeff does is going to be good.
Better than good, actually-- it's going to be fucking amazing.
Part of the problem with unearthing covers like this is that they ARE going to appeal mostly to people who've been a longstanding fan of Jeff's music and who understand his output-- because as a whole, this fits in directly with how passionate he was. I don't think this cover is devoid of emotion at all.
I feel like it's just dripping with it, actually. It'd be kind of impossible to find anything that he did that lacks emotion.
I second the person who brought up "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side".
..one of my favourite covers he's ever done, I only wish I found a better quality version of it.
It's too bad Jeff Buckley couldn't swim. Perhaps he could have fronted The New Smiths if he were around today.
At the record company meeting,
On their hands a devious, truculent, and unreliable lead singer,
And oh, the plans they weave,
And oh, the sickening greed
Actually Rochelle, (and I quote, from two posts earlier):
"yes, that's the rapper, not Cat Stevens.
"
so yes, you did say that. and you're an idiot. and your blog is absolutely terrible.
its like a shitty mix up of bad stereogum and a 15 year old girls diary.
Jeff Buckley was one of the most amazing singers who ever lived,period.I've been a singer/writer/keyboardist for 35 years,and very few artists impress me as much as Jeff did/does.
If you don't appreciate this,you probably think FallOutBoy are musical geniuses,and if you do,God help you.There is no one alive today who sounds like Jeff.Even though some of the live stuff that comes out may not be perfect,it's so far closer to perfect than anything being released today there is simply no comparison.
nealo, you had to be there.
Here's the difference: in the mid-90's, so many bands defined themselves but what they 'weren't.'
To me, a lot of times, the whole alternative scene just felt lazy.
Bands who couldn't really sing, couldn't really play and REALLY couldn't dress. and thought it was funny to play classic rock covers while drunk. i guess it was fun for them?
along comes Buckley. Not part of any scene, really. Singing in this angelic voice, with this band that roars like Led Zeppelin (way before that was post-modernly cool), and doing covers by Nina Simone (way before the Starbucks generation picked up on that artist), is funny as hell, and looks he's going to steal your girlfriend.
dude re-invented the game. i agree the records don't totally hold up or maybe, show you the whole thing. but, live, trust me, there was nothing even close.
News RSS