If there's one thing potentially more disastrous than 'the live album' in the music biz's sticky mire, then it's gotta be 'the covers album'. Yes, there are honourable exceptions (Cat Power's sublime "Covers Record" springs to mind), but for every one of these there are 10 more that suck a nasty one. Actually, the living proof of the abject horror such projects are capable of inflicting can be summed up in four little words: Duran Duran - "Thank You."
However, when entrusted to Greg Dulli's dangerously capable hands, the idea of a covers album can be approached with a little more confidence, and so it proves with "She Loves You": an album of heartfelt covers which concerns love and loneliness and stems from Dulli's split from his girlfriend rather than the Beatles' pastiche the title suggests.
In truth, it doesn't quite scale the heights of the Twilight Singers' previous album, "Blackberry Belle", but seeing as how that remains one of the year's best albums, that's probably not too surprising. Besides, only someone wth the cocksure audacity of Dulli could hope to take on evergreen tunes by the likes of Fleetwood Mac, Nina Simone, Billie Holliday and (have mercy) John Coltrane and hope to survive.
But it's to Dulli's credit that - while at least parts of "She Loves You" are a failure - he's not made a dog's dinner of this. "She Loves You", while hardly improving on the originals here, still makes an admirable fist of this covers business and lives to fight another day.
Dulli appraoched the running order with the skill of a scriptwriter and he's got his "bookending" tracks right, as "She Loves You" opens and closes with real class. Dulli's version of Hope Sandoval's "Feeling Of Gaze" opens up, finding him alone with his acoustic, and it's especially poignant when you realise he was listening to the original of this song when travelling to his best friend's funeral. This sense of drama and loss pervades throughout, though Dulli also scores with the closing track, a cover of Gershwin's "Summertime" copped from Sam Cooke and informed by the misty atmosphere of Angelo
Badalamenti's "Twin Peaks" OST.
What lives within is more of a mixed bag, though certainly Dulli's new soul-rock allstars The Twilight Singers perform consistently and with the might and/ or restraint each situation calls for, and generally the good outweighs the mediocre.
Let's get the deadweight out of the way first. Bjork's "Hyperballad" is recognisable, but Dulli can't ever seriously hope to compete with her Icelandic majesty's angelic tonsils, and despite Helen Storer and Mark Lanegan pepping up the chorus, it's all rather leaden and workmanlike. Fleetwood Mac's "What Makes You Think You're The One" doesn't really cut the Colman's French either, but then again your reviewer always hated t'Mac's airbrushed, cocaine period, so anything dating from this era is guilty by association. Also, while cross-fertilising John Lennon with Mary.J.Blige may seem the obvious thing to do in Greg's feverish mind, the reality is a tad wonky. Mind you, the groove's good and, with the funky piano and Jon Skibic's skyscraping lap steel to the fore, it could almost be an out-take from "Blackberry Belle."
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Elsewhere, your reviewer must confess ignorance of the source material, not least where Martina Topley Bird's "Too Tough To Die" is concerned. Still, the Twilights' take is effective regardless, with the loping bassline, Bobby McIntyre's funky drums and Dulli's prowling vocals particularly effective. At a tangent, Greg's a brave man to tackle Billie Holliday's unimpeachable "Strange Fruit", though after cheekily half-inching the guitar riff from The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and ushering Mark Lanegan's shadowy presence in to guide, the epic anger it exudes gets them through.
Besides, there are several real gems littered about the place as well. Lanegan stays on board for a great, lowdown'n'dirty acoustic take of Skip James' brooding "Hard Time Killing Floor" and the resulting duet, recorded at a ghostly 5AM, fits them both like a glove. Ditto the arrangement of the trad.arr/ Nina Simone classic "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair", which has all the amibitious lurch of the best Afghan Whigs. As for "A Love Supreme", well, tryin' John Coltrane on for size is the aural equivalent of falling ass-first into a pit of vipers, but the Twilights' supernatural ability ensures that while Dulli fails, he does so nobly.
So, while you can't truly make a case for "She Loves You" as a classic companion piece for the wonderful "Blackberry Belle", it's a cool insight into the songs that make Greg Dulli tick and still a good album at that. I suspect it's probably also a record he needed to make to clear the baggage before his next all-out assault with original material. Playing with fire then? Maybe, but by now we should know Greg Dulli's never timid where bringing the petrol and matches is concerned.
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