Artist	Song
The Velvet Underground & Nico	There She Goes Again
from Gold: The Velvet Underground (2005)
Roger Miller	King of the Road
from Roger Miller: All Time Greatest Hits (2003)
The Velvet Underground	Pale Blue Eyes
from Gold: The Velvet Underground (2005)
The Clique	Superman
from The Clique (1995)
The Velvet Underground & Nico	Femme Fatale
from Gold: The Velvet Underground (2005)
Wire	Strange
from Pink Flag (Remastered) (2009)
Iggy Pop	Funtime
from The Idiot (1992)
Leonard Cohen	First We Take Manhattan
from The Essential Leonard Cohen (2002)
Glen Campbell	Wichita Lineman
from 20 Greatest Hits (2000)
John Lennon	#9 Dream
from Power to the People - The Hits (Remastered) (2010)

Comment:

R.E.M. culled their covers from a Bizarro-world jukebox where massive hits, buried trifles, and critical faves were stacked cheek-by-jowl. The word [i]murky[/i] often surfaces in describing R.E.M., but their art-rockin’, proto-punkin’ heroes the Velvet Underground deliver the darkness at Turkish-coffee strength in our featured trio of originals, including “Femme Fatale” and “Pale Blue Eyes.” In fact, Lou Reed once told the band, “I really like [your versions] — it sounds like you never listened to the records!” John Lennon’s “#9 Dream” is the Velvets’ polar opposite: airy as spun sugar and half again as sweet; its “My Sweet Lord”-ish nonsense-syllable chorus of “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé” features his ex-mistress, May Pang, on gossamer-wing backing vocals. And the Austin-based Clique dropped a two-and-a-half-minute wedge of sunshine pop called “Superman” on the [i]b-side[/i] of their highest-charting single. Nearly two decades later, R.E.M. proved their [i]High Fidelity[/i]-caliber command of obscuro-rock by resurrecting this truly awesome song for [i]Lifes Rich Pageant[/i]. Life’s rich pageant, indeed. But don’t stop there; this may be the only time you’ll ever see the dots connected between Iggy Pop, Glen Campbell, and Wire . . . and the line passes through our favorite band from Athens.

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