What better way to celebrate an anniversary than to reinterpret the past through song. Merge Records, which began 20 years ago, will be releasing THE COVERS! on April 7 in a very limited edition of 7,500, with profits going to charities chosen by the curators of Merge's super-huge subscription series Score!
THE COVERS! will include 20 tracks from some of today's biggest names and will cover past and present Merge artists. Highlights include the cleanest-sounding Times New Viking cover of The Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1," the premiere of Calvin Johnson's new band The Hive Dweller's on their oddball cover of Superchunk's "My Noise," and The Mountain Goats' stripped down cover of East River Pipe's "Drug Life."
To celebrate their 20th anniversary Merge will also be hosting XX MERGE (TMT News), "five days of live music from Merge artists past and present taking place in the label's native North Carolina July 22-26." Lineup and ticket info should be announced shortly.
THE COVERS! tracklist:
1. Quasi – Beautiful Things (3Ds)
2. Les Savy Fav – Precision Auto (Superchunk)
3. The Shins – Plenty Is Never Enough (Tenement Halls)
4. St. Vincent and The National – Sleep All Summer (Crooked Fingers)
5. Broken Social Scene – Complications (The Clean)
6. Ryan Adams – Like a Fool (Superchunk)
7. Bright Eyes – Papa Was a Rodeo (The Magnetic Fields)
8. Lavender Diamond – New Ways of Living (Destroyer)
9. The Apples in Stereo – King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 3 (Neutral Milk Hotel)
10. Laura Cantrell – Cowboy on the Moon (Lambchop)
11. Bill Callahan – Santa Maria (Versus)
12. Barbara Manning – Through With People (Portastatic)
13. The Mountain Goats – Drug Life (East River Pipe)
14. The New Pornographers – Don’t Destroy This Night (The Rock*A*Teens)
15. Tracey Thorn & Jens Lekman – Yeah! Oh, Yeah! (The Magnetic Fields)
16. The Hive Dwellers – My Noise (Superchunk)
17. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – The Numbered Head (Robert Pollard)
18. Okkervil River – All You Little Suckers (East River Pipe)
19. Death Cab for Cutie – Kicked In (Superchunk)
20. Times New Viking – Neighborhood #1 (Arcade Fire)
