The Set List

Muse Covers Nina Simone; We, Too, Choose to Celebrate the Great Dr. Simone

On night 2 of the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Muse surprised the crowd at the Gibson Amphitheater with a cover of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good." Surprises, rather than rundown of hits,  give these shows a purpose. Simone, who preferred to be addressed as Doctor, set aside her disdain for the United States toward the end of her life and started appearing here on a more regular basis than she had in the 1980s and '90s. (Being in her presence enriched our lives). Her impressive catalog continues to be in a state of disarray - only a portion of it has been treated with any respect - and it seems that any attempt at definitively chronicling her life via film or music-centric biography never comes to fruition. Her legacy deserves a better treatment; she should be celebrated for being the one artist who married Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and civil rights into a singular uncompromising persona.
Here's her "Feeling Good":

Covering the Covers: Crix Dig New Singers Doing The Same Old Song

With covers albums swamping the release schedule this month, the Set List decided to explore whether anyone has anything positive to say about this discs. First stop was Metacritic, which does a fine job accumulating reviews, assigning a value to the reviewer’s opinion and then producing an average score. The problem was that Metacritic had deciphered data for only one of the albums on my list, Ann Wilson’s “Hope & Glory.” Based on four reviews, they gave it a 79. (That’s a lot higher than I would have given it).
Deciding to take on the data collection myself, suddenly I have new-found respect for what a chore this is. It appears major publications are either cutting way back on CD reviews or hiding them so Google’s search engine won’t discover them until the searcher has gone through four pages of Amazon, cduniverse and Barnes and Noble pages.
While overall it’s a glimmer hope that typing in the word “Tesla” does not yield many results or fan sites, it becomes a bit staggering to think Babyface just doesn’t get his albums reviewed like he did back in the day.
Searching for anything on some of these discs takes you to some rather clueless reviews. One self-appointed typist-critic of New Found Glory’s latest decided a) he didn’t like the songs they selected; b) that he didn’t like the way the songs were performed; and c) admitted that he went in with high expectations. But, he notes, it’s “a good time.” Oy.
Most shocking is how well liked some of these discs were. Have negative reviews become passé?
Barry Manilow’s “Greatest Songs of the Seventies” earned a rave from the BBC that said “For those who love Manilow, this is a must. For those who don’t, this could well be the disc to make them change their minds.” The Boston Herald said  his singing is “more impassioned” than ever.
Chaka Khan’s “Funk This” got two thumbs up from Robert Christgau at Rolling Stone and Mark Edward Nero’s Guide to R&B. The dean of rock criticism noted: “Chaka Khan has never bothered with great albums because she has such a great voice -- juicy, airy, spunky, transported. Though she's 54, it's also unfrayed, one reason this committed if never classic comeback makes its mark.”
“Playlist,” a collection of 1970s singer-songwriter material from Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds , finds Entertainment Weekly noting that he can take bland or treacly material and “render it superior to the original with delicate or atypical phrasing plus sheer commitment.” They loved his take on Bob Dylan's ''Knockin' on Heaven's Door''; disliked Jim Croce's “'Time in a Bottle.”
Herbie Hancock has released a tribute to Joni Mitchell titled “River: The Joni Letters.” New York magazine called it “a success”; the L.A. Times called Hancock “interpreter (who) really grasps the key to Mitchell's genius”; and the Boston Phoenix was impressed with his  “languid, meditative takes on the Mitchell songbook.”
The soundtrack to “Across the Universe” —  actors and Bono singing Beatles songs — received an indifferent review from the L.A. Times. “Even with many inviting arrangements and inventive production work from T Bone Burnett and Elliot Goldenthal, the Lennon-McCartney and Harrison songs too often wind up in nowhere land.”
The two-CD  “Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino” features a multitude of artists who got allmusicguide.com to rave: “Just how loved Fats Domino is by the music community is borne out by the A-list names who've contributed to one of the more remarkable tribute albums to surface in recent years.”
The Boston Globe uses words such as “fizzy,” “zippy,” “sultry” and “sassy” in a complimentary assessment of  “Trav'lin' Light” by Queen Latifah.
No publication or website has published anything on “Real to Reel Vol. 2” by Tesla or Boyz II Men’s “Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA.”
But as covers go, will any of them endiure or even compare with this?

The Jersey Boy Revisits The '60s

In the relentless sea of cover albums emerges Frankie Valli, singing 14 love songs for "Romancing The ‘60s," which Universal Motown will release Oct. 2.
Bob Gaudio, Valli's partner in the Four Seasons, has produced. Disc's arranger/conductors Charles Calello and Artie Schroeck are also veterans of Four Seasons/Valli sessions. Gaudio and Valli last collaborated on a 1992 Four Seasons album; Valli's last solo album was released in 1978.
The tracks and the original hitmakers: Bobby Vee’s “Take Good Care of My Baby”; Ben E. King’s “Spanish Harlem”; The Drifters’ “On Broadway” (with the original Broadway cast of Jersey Boys); Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”; Jimmy Ruffin’s “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”; The Temptations’ “My Girl”/the Rascals’ “Groovin’”; The Casinos’ “Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye”; Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny”; Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Any Day Now” and “This Guy’s in Love With You”; Gilbert Becaud’s “Let it Be Me”; and Tony Hatch’s “Call Me.”