Bob Dylan's genius is often taken for granted. Truly, sometimes it takes talented musicians doing a cover of his music for us to appreciate how good it really is. The Black Keys are one of the most talented and kick-ass bands of our generation. Here is their cover of his Wicked Messenger for the movie soundtrack I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic. Oh, and a Rod Stewart led Faces cover too.

Wicked Messenger - The Black Keys
Wicked Messenger - The Faces

The Zutons

The Zutons are awesome. This song Valerie is incredible. It's so cool that even a crazy drug addict like Amy Winehouse decided to do a cover of it. Normally that would be a borderline insult but Amy Winehouse is awesome and most musicians are drug addicts to some degree or another. Here's two versions the Kick Ass Zutons version and the pretty awesome Amy Winehouse version.

Valerie - Zutons Version
Valerie - Amy "Crazy Drug Addict" Version

Cake

Here is a song off of Cake's recent Rarities album; it's their version of Barry White's Never Gonna Give You Up. It's pretty awesome. The album has 5 different scratch and sniff smells, that is less awesome. This song should have been on one of their regular albums. A few years back when they were more popular, that way more people could have been jamming out to this song. It's strength is in how funky and crazy sounding it is. The lead singer sounds like he wants to fight somebody in the song. Maybe he wants to fight his woman that he doesn't want to give up. And, as he says in the song, he's not going to give her up because quitting just ain't his shit.


Cake - Never Gonna Give You Up

Andrew Bird

This guy is wicked cool. The album I really like right now is 2001's The Swimming Hour. He mixes all sorts of music styles throughout the album making sure that each song is unique. This is the last album that Andrew Bird plays with Andrew Birds Bowl of Fire. According to Wikipedia this guy is proficient with the Violin, Guitar, Glockenspiel, and Whistling. Being an outstanding whistler sounds really dorky, but somehow it's actually a lot cooler than it seems. Here's my favorite song Dear Old Greenland (no whistling). Do yourself a favor and check out the rest of the album. If you're feeling extra crazy check out one of his other albums The Mysterious Product. It is also most excellent.

Andrew Bird - Dear Old Greenland

The National

I've never heard of these guys before but they seem really cool. There is a lot of stuff going on in this song, including some drums and horn business after the halfway mark. Their album, The Boxer, just came out recently. I haven't heard all of it yet, but I am excited to see what else these guys are all about. The lead singer has a sort of Leonard Cohen voice which is good, especially if you like Leonard Cohen.

Fake Empire - The National

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Knocked Up

Loudon Wainwright III is the father of Rufus Wainwright. Both are excellent singers. The song daughter is on the soundtrack for the movie Knocked Up, the most hilarious movie to come out in a long time. Anywho, the song is awesome. Listen to it before the radio stations reach out and kill it with their terrible radio death grip. Honestly its like radio stations hate music and they work around the clock to make sure you hate it too. Right, the album is called Strange Weirdos and it's all great. Check out this song and you'll see.

Daughter - Loudon Wainwright III

Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams has written some of the most depressing songs ever sung. However, he has also written some really rocking songs. Halloween Head is one of the rocking ones. The song is kind of confusing because I don't really know what Halloween Head means and the guitar solo in the middle is actually a Keytar solo, even with those speed bumps the song is still very cool.

Ryan Adams - Halloween Head

Wagon Wheel

This song was written by Bob Dylan and Old Crow Medicine Show. The lead singer of Against Me!, Tom Gabel, does an great job with this stripped down version of Wagon Wheel. It's awesome.

Against Me! - Wagon Wheel

The Pogues

The album Hell's Ditch came out right before the Pogues kicked their chief song writer and lead singer Shane MacGowan out of the band. Listen to the words of the song and you'll know why. He drank so much you can't even tell what he's saying. That said the songs on the album are awesome. My favorite is Sayonara. I think it's about a girl in a red skirt, but really it could be about anything, including tigers.

Sayonara - The Pogues

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The Wood Brothers

The Wood Brothers album Ways Not To Lose is incredible. I won't bore you with the details of their history but let's just agree to agree that the two brothers Oliver and Christopher are top notch musicians. Chris was a bassist in the jazz group Medeski, Martin and Wood and Oliver sings and writes most of the songs. John Medeski, from the aforementioned jazz group, produces the album. Not to gush but these guys are really good. NPR agrees, in fact they were included in NPR's 2006 edition of Overlooked. Check it out, the whole album is good. Luckiest Man is my favorite and probably will be yours too.

iTunes

The Wood Brothers - Luckiest Man mp3

The Avett Brothers

Hurray for the Avett Brothers! Once again they have made my day. They have created another incredible album. An appearance on Conan the other week proves what a large group of fans have know for quite some time. These guys are awesome, and are going to make it big here soon. Check out "Go To Sleep"

Go To Sleep - The Avett Brothers

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