Tuesday, October 25th 2011

News:  U2

Hear NIN, Depeche Mode & The Killers’ U2 Tribute Tracks

By Steven Anthony

After stellar covers by Jack White (Love Is Blindness), Damien Rice (One) and a disappointing cover of Wild Horses by Garbage, anticipation for Q’s AHK-toong BAY-bi is still running high.

This morning a few of the most-wanted tracks from the tribute/cover LP hit the internet, including Depeche Mode’s take on So Cruel, The Killers’ Ultraviolet (Light My Way) and the first new music from Nine Inch Nails in quite some time – Zoo Station.

Depeche Mode’s So Cruel is an electronic, galloping version of one of the most underappreciated tracks on Achtung Baby. Dave Gahan and Co. sound pretty much perfect covering the track, keeping the overall vibe of the original but injecting a healthy dose of the synthpop style that made Depeche Mode a household name.

The Killers’ Ultraviolet (Light My Way) starts out sounding like Brandon Flowers wanted to turn the song into Bohemian Rhapsody, but eventually it calms down and becomes a pretty standard cover of one of AB’s best songs. By the time the chorus comes, Flowers’ voice does the track justice but doesn’t really take the song into any new territory.

Programmed by long time Reznor collaborator Atticus Ross, NIN’s version of Zoo Station comes across as a bit of a disappointment. Setting aside the soaring guitar and Bono’s instantly recognizable vocals, Reznor’s version is much more reserved than what we were expecting. The entire time Reznor is singing “I’m ready for the shuffle / ready for the deal / ready to let go of the steering wheel / I’m ready for the crush,” you wait for an explosion of sound, feeling the guitars build up but instead the song fades back into self, almost as if Reznor was afraid to take too many liberties with the song. Hear that one over at Stereogum.

Lastly this morning we have Acrobat by Glasvegas:

From what we’ve heard of the album so far, it sounds like most of the artists just weren’t comfortable changing up the songs too much. We’ve heard the majority of the tracks people are going to care about – only Patti Smith, the Fray, Snow Patrol and Gavin Friday remain, and mostly we’re left wondering what could have been if all of the artists could have reworked the songs like Jack White’s take on Love is Blindness.