Survey Says: Album Cover

Last month, Jackpot Records released The Ram Project, Portland musician Dave Depper’s complete, faithful and excellent take on Paul McCartney’s second post-Beatles album, Ram. Inspired by the effort, City Arts asked Seattle musicians what album they would like to recreate and what they would do to it.

Trevor Dickson (The Nightgowns)
Inspiration Information by Shuggie Otis

“This would give us a good opportunity to get sexy on some recordings and get in touch with our soul side. I don’t know that any of us are great enough guitarists to be entirely faithful to the original record, but I’d like to think that our versions of the songs would be equally booty-shakin’.”

Slowwave
I’m Your Man by Leonard Cohen 

“The songs, on their own, are examples of masterful songwriting--timeless, and even eerily relevant in some cases. They would undoubtedly be left unchanged. Yet, Cohen is practically untouchable, and any attempt to ‘faithfully’ recreate his work could, as it often does, lead to embarrassment.”

Geoff Weeg (Off Model)
Under the Western Freeway by Grandaddy

“I love all the songs and there is something minimalist about the whole album that I really like. The lyrics are great, and I love the drum sounds. Plus, the bandmembers are all skaters. My version would end up being sketchier and more electronic-sounding, mostly because I have a different vocal range and I can’t really play guitar.”

Kirsten Wenlock (Elk and Boar)
Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris

“This album has a timeless, non-genre-specific, male/female, dark/light, happy/sad paradoxical feeling running throughout that we feel akin with. We’d give it a respectful spin. Record live front to back, using original renditions and instrumentation as a jumping off place with an objective to fully explore and experience all the raw emotion in the songs.”