Friday, September 7, 2018

Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs - Under the Covers, Volume 2.5 (2009)

A few days ago, I posted my companion album to "Under the Covers, Volume 1," by Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs. I called it "Under the Covers, Volume 1.5," because it covered the same 1960s material. Here's the exact same thing, except this is "Under the Covers, Volume 2.5," covering 1970s material.

For "Volume 1," Sweet and Hoffs officially released three bonus tracks. For "Volume 2," they released an entire bonus disc that contains ten songs. So my work is done already, right? Not exactly, because there are plenty of other occasions when Sweet and/or Hoffs recorded 1970s songs. That's especially true for Sweet.

Most of the songs on this album are from the 2000s, but two of the Sweet songs are from the 1990s. Plus, for one Hoffs song, I had to reach all the way back to 1991 and her cover of "Feel like Makin' Love." This cover deserves special mention. For one thing, her version is great musically. But I highly, highly recommend you watch the YouTube video, because it's a real hoot. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol4MaEPayv0

As a male, I must say, this is one of the sexiest and most arousing music videos I've ever seen! Hoffs gets so into grooving to the song that I think she would make most professional pole dancers envious of her moves!

A couple other songs deserve special mention. I found a live version of Sweet and Hoffs doing "In the Long Run" together, which seems to be the only time they did this song. Note that this isn't the Eagles song "The Long Run," but instead is a song from the soundtrack to the 1970 cult classic movie "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

One song here, the "I've Seen All Good People - Your Move" medley, is merely a bonus track. That's because it also appears on "Volume 2." But this version is worthy of inclusion at least as a bonus track because it's done in a very different style, with just Sweet and Hoffs on acoustic guitars. (Plus, it's really just the "Your Move" part of the medley, while the official version has the full medley.) Additionally, the recording of this version (done for rollingstone.com) was poorly miked, with Sweet's vocals much, much louder than Hoff's. So, using a music editor, I carefully lowered all of Sweet's vocals so they wouldn't stand out. I think it worked. You can find the unedited version at YouTube if you're curious to see the difference.

When I first posted this in 2018, I decided there wasn't enough material to make a "3.5" album to complement the "Under the Covers, Volume 3" album that consists of 1980s covers. There just weren't enough extra 1980s songs, so I put everything here. But I decided that if I move all the songs from 1977 and after to the 3.5 album, that would split the material nicely. 

Thus, all the originals here date from 1970 to 1976. I found a couple more that fit, "Let Me Be the One" and "Do Ya." That means there's more Sweet-led songs than Hoffs-led ones, but so be it. There are a couple of Hoffs songs I could have included that fit the format, but I'm saving those for some solo albums I plan on posting later.

01 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love & Understanding (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
02 You Can Close Your Eyes (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
03 Melissa (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
04 A Song for You (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
05 Killer Queen (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
06 Baby Blue (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
07 Livin' Thing (Matthew Sweet)
08 Let Me Be the One (Matthew Sweet)
09 In the Long Run (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)
10 The Ballad of El Goodo (Matthew Sweet)
11 Every Night (Matthew Sweet)
12 Feel like Making Love (Susanna Hoffs)
13 It Don't Matter to Me (Matthew Sweet)
14 Do Ya (Matthew Sweet)

I've Seen All Good People - Your Move [Acoustic Version] (Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15263891/MattSwtSusH_2009_UndrCovrsVolme2.5_atse.zip.html


I made the cover using a photo of Sweet and Hoffs, but I don't know what year it's from. I copied and pasted the text from one of the official albums to keep that distinctive font, then I changed the numbering.

3 comments:

  1. Yes, I have watched that video a few times now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Link seems to take me in circles. Huge Hoffs fan here. Let me know how I can get your creative masterpiece.

    http://www.kennethinthe212.com/search/label/susanna%20hoffs

    ReplyDelete
  3. I didn't know Hoffs is coming out with a new album. Nice!

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