new yo la tengo

Hmm, let's put it this way, then: I seriously doubt Ira and Georgia are fans of the Cure. Yet this song was a bona fide modern rock hit, so I'm sure they are not only familiar with it, but that they probably hear it more often than they hear many other songs they're not necessarily fans of. So this isn't a matter of them covering, I don't know, "Evening Dress" from Mick Jagger's "Wandering Spirit" or Dylan's "Dark Eyes" and saying, hey, check out these nice songs from major artists that the average person may not know (a la "Oklahoma USA," say, or Cale solo joints). This is them covering earnestly a song I'd only ever imagined them covering ironically, which is another layer of irony.

Anyway, the results are nice, so the process doesn't matter, but more than anything they've ever done before I could imagine this popping up in a Gap ad (or the modern equivalent) and people trying to figure out the name of the group that does that pretty acoustic Cure cover.

it seems like your problem is the inability to imagine them enjoying a jangly pop hit enough to cover it irrespective its source, despite the fact that i was nice enough to point out the last time they did it

and i mean "the last time they did it as a single" - obv they've covered plenty on wfmu

and let's not forget "somebody's baby"

i will agree this is the most "gap ad" friendly cover they've done, though i dunno, "here comes my baby" might have seemed disturbingly muzak for someone who remembered the song the first time around

You don't have to a be fan to cover a tune you like, Josh.

wasn't going to say gap ad, but i did think that it sounded like they'd been commissioned by The Gilmore Girls to provide a cover for a key scene (which is fine by me I <3 the Gilmore Girls)

gave me a bit of a frente flashback

are they really releasing an album with bardo pond?

it's a split LP -- the two bands don't actually play together, they just each contribute a side. and let me tell you, this particular yo la tengo tune would *not* be on a gap ad.

"wasn't going to say gap ad, but i did think that it sounded like they'd been commissioned by The Gilmore Girls to provide a cover for a key scene (which is fine by me I <3 the Gilmore Girls)

― tylerw, Tuesday, July 14, 2015 3:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

"My Little Corner of the World" was used on a GG episode, but weirdly, even though it was YLT's arrangement, it wasn't YLT's version (nor the original), though their version was on the GG soundtrack album.

yeah i think i read the producers sidestepped using YLT's version and just hired some musicians to copy it note for note.

cheapin' the TV way

So much of what I think is characterized as "sounds like a Gap ad" registers with me as success - aesthetic success and success in communication.

In this case (as in others, but not always).

Love this.

I have no problem with this cover, think it's lovely! But on a (my, personal analytical) level, it seems more on the nose than most of their covers, since they typically go hip or deep or both. Then again, by picking such a prominent Cure song, that is sort of a reverse going deep, a la "Somebody's Baby."

except Somebody's Baby is his highest charting song

o never mind

Is this the most contemporary song they've ever recorded? Maybe that's it.

"here comes my baby" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of facebook
"friday i'm in love" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of Stuff Like That There

"somebody's baby" was five years old when they covered it

covered a times new viking tune on an EP a few years back...
yung wu tune on their 1st record was probably only a year old when they covered it.

it's funny to think that "a house is not a motel" was newer when yo la tengo covered it than "friday i'm in love" was when yo la tengo covered it

Yeah, that's all sort of blowing my mind, in part because despite their span I sort of still treat Yo La Tengo as contemporary and not as a band that's been around as long as, I dunno, the Stones c. "Steel Wheels."

heh yeah, when i got into them back in the early 90s, i remember the record store guy saying "they've been around a long time..."

i've mentioned on flaming lips threads the record store clerk who couldn't believe in '99 that those jerks who opened for dino jr in 85 were still kicking around. he also thought yo la tengo was a baffling cockroach as well.

i think they started gigging in '85 xp

when Chuck Berry was around Ira's current age

Is this the most contemporary song they've ever recorded? Maybe that's it.

This does point to the fact that, even though the timeline is the same and the song has definite similarities to "Here Comes My Baby"--again, I think it's a good comparison--there's definitely a different dynamic here. "Friday, I'm in Love" was a big hit in '92, when Yo La Tengo were still getting their footing; I'm sure they looked around at all the indie/alternative/I-can't-remember-what-they-were-called-in-1992 bands starting to cross over after Nirvana (which doesn't totally apply to the Cure; a little bit) and thought "Maybe we can get a song into the Top 40 too." This is just before the Meat Puppets and Butthole Surfers had minor hits, something that was unthinkable when Yo La Tengo started out. So even though I have no idea how they feel about "Friday, I'm in Love" or the Cure (beyond the fact I'm convinced they love the song), it can't quite be the same for them as covering a Cat Stevens song from 1967.

"I could hear the hearts beating us down."

...he also thought yo la tengo was a baffling cockroach as well.

Baffling Cockroach is a James/Georgia side project.

By Otis Hart | NPR

A band as respected as Yo La Tengo covering one of the silliest chart-topping songs in recent memory would seem like the end of the world as we know it for fans of the original Fakebook — and that wasn’t lost on Kaplan, Hubley and bassist James McNew. The video, directed by Jason Woliner, features Hubley inciting the apocalypse as she strolls around Hoboken, New Jersey, singing the song.

Silliest? End of the World? James covered Prince long ago with Dump, I don't get this shock aspect, or the interpretation of the video.

yeah is someone truly mad they covered the Cure?

Maybe it's a misinterpretation of the original song. I had to listen to the original myself to hear the wistfulness that comes out in YLT's version. I'd be curious to hear what Cure fans have to say about it.

And, if he's suggesting that the apocalyptic theme of the video was related to an attributed irony in their cover of the song, that's not how I interpreted it.

Maybe the reviewer is conflating The Cure's "Friday" with Rebecca Black's. I hear no silliness in the original, and no irony in the cover.

haha hmm. i mean, "silliest" is ok if you're going to go ahead and say the beatles are a silly band?

i'm loving how many people are referring to this song as being "recent" or "contemporary" when it's over 20 years old

that said i do get the peculiarity for some of a retro-minded alt-band covering one of their contemporaries. and, tying to what tylerw said, on first listen it sounds more commissioned than inspired. but i'm influenced by the video, which i didn't find as funny as they intended.

I don't think they intended it as funny!

I think it's about love being wildly powerful.

Did the video strike you as serious?

"Friday I'm In Love" was very divisive when it was originally released, with fandom splitting between "this is the platonic ideal of The Cure in pop-with-an-undercurrent mode" and "this is sellout post-'Lovesong' garbage"

yeah at the time i thought it was great that the cure could pull something like that song off, and it was definitely a nice counterpoint to the gloominess of most early 90s rock.
anyway, my main takeaway from YLT doing this song is that i still love georgia hubley's voice.

It's presented in a very light and playful way. I see two main aspects of the video, though, the stuff exploding and Hubley's obliviousness. Both suggest a theme about the power of love and, yeah, I think that's actually a serious topic! The emotive quality of the song, to me, demands a serious reading.

Alright I didn't find it as funny OR profound as they may have intended.

pretending a video where the bodiless bassist is interviewed by the media and Fridays are removed from the post apocalyptic calendar isn't meant to be funny actually makes your reading less serious

I think the bodiless bassist was probably meant to be silly, not necessarily funny. Same thing with the calendar.

And stop saying I'm pretending plz.

The silliness doesn't negate anything.

In fact, it creates a context that allows the theme to exist as suggestion.

I'd be more inclined to respect your analysis if you stopped making semantic distinctions to disqualify mine