Vote Early Vote Often: Next week is the second anniversary of Cover Freak. There’s still time to let me know if there are any songs from the last twelve months that you’d like reposted. Let me be clear about that. I will only repost songs from the last twelve months. That means the oldest songs I will repost are ones originally posted in October 2007. I will not repost any songs that I originally posted over twelve months ago.

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There are several ways to view the career of the band Blondie: vehicle for Debbie Harry, genre-hopping musical opportunists, new-wave sellouts, creative visionaries. One thing that you can’t argue is that they covered a huge amount of musical ground.

The Puppini Sisters “Heart of Glass” (Blondie)
I have no affection for disco, especially as performed by former new-wave trendsetters. But I love the Puppini Sisters and this Andrews Sisters style take on the song makes me smile.

Lee Rocker “One Way Or Another” (Blondie)
This song is such an iconic new-wave anthem that everybody that covers it seems to be afraid to do anything new with it. So this roots-rock treatment is quite a treat. And needless to say, Lee Rocker is one of the best rock and roll stage names ever. It’s almost as good as Lux Interior.

The Box Tops “Call Me” (Blondie)
There’s something sleazy and seductive going on here. And when I think of the Box Tops (which honestly isn’t all that often) “sleazy” and “seductive” are not the words that come immediately to mind. This comes to us from the wonderful When Pigs Fly compilation.

Smashing Pumpkins “Dreaming” (Blondie)
The Pumpkins are really hit and miss as a cover band. About half of their covers just sound like a generic Smashing Pumpkins song. And then the other half are absolutely inspired like this one. It’s slower than the original with a fantastically insistent drumbeat and great washes of distorted guitar.

Blondie “The Tide Is High” (The Paragons)
Most people don’t know that this was originally an obscure reggae song before Blondie added the horns and turned it into a big hit. Now there are lots of versions of it out there, most of them covering Blondie’s cover.