Stop The Presses!

Hip To Be Square: Beck Does Yanni, Gaga Does Bolton

By | Stop The Presses! – Mon, Jul 12, 2010 1:54 PM EDT

What is itwith all these "uncool" artists being hip all of a sudden? First, queenof cool Lady Gaga elected to duet with ponytailed critics' punching bag Michael Bolton onhis single "Murder My Heart," and now '90s alt-rock pioneers Beck andThurston Moore have covered equally hirsute (and equally ridiculed) Grecian new ager Yanni's songs,"Santorini" and "Keys To The Imagination."

Beck's RecordClub ("an informal meeting of various people to record an album in a day")has recently embarked on a series of indie-allstar track recreations of variousclassic albums, including INXS's Kick,Slip Spence's Oar, Leonard Cohen's Songs Of Leonard Cohen, the VelvetUnderground's Velvet Underground &Nico, and even Beck's own Sea Change.And Beck's latest Record Club project is perhaps his most ambitious yet: a track-by-track remakeof Yanni Live At The Acropolis, featuringSonic Youth's Thurston Moore, math-rockers Tortoise, and other musical cohorts. The results are surprisinglyavant garde--and, yes, very cool.

Check out Beck& Friends' first two Record Club Yanni covers below (more will be posted on Beck'sRecord Club site in the coming weeks), and just for fun, we've thrown in that Bolton/Gaga song, too.

 

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