Kiwi Sue reminded me several months ago that Saturday is Madonna’s 50th birthday. Even though she can’t sing or act her way out of a paper bag I can understand her appeal during her prime. She was mighty hot, even in those Playboy pictures with the hairy armpits. Now she’s dried up and scary looking and I don’t know what Alex Rodriguez sees in her, unless he’s got a thing for over-the-hill gay icons. In which case his to-do list probably also includes Bette Midler and Cher. And Richard Simmons.

Texas Lightning “Like A Virgin” (Madonna)
This song sounds very nice as a heartfelt country song. It’s sort of touching.

Petty Booka “Material Girl” (Madonna)
I never miss an excuse to post a song from my favorite Tokyo bluegrass honeys. The phonetic singing, the ukuleles– they just slay me.

Jack Johnson and G. Love “Holiday/Who Do You Love” (Madonna/Bo Diddley)
This one starts out as an earnest acoustic song, devolves into freestyle rap and ends up with Bo Diddley’s swagger. It sounds horribly ill-advised when you describe it, but it works much better when you listen to it.

Switchblade Symphony “Lucky Star” (Madonna)
This song really brings out the obsessive stalker aspect of the lyrics. It’s shimmery and unsettling at the same time.

Rufio “Like A Prayer” (Madonna)
Madonna’s video for this song featured her shocking the bourgeoisie by having stigmata. That somehow makes a punk cover of the song seem appropriate to me.

People in other countries have been known to complain about American cultural imperialism. But those same people can fight back by co-opting American music and making it their own. Like these folks did.

Bugotak “Maadai-Kara (Mission Impossible)” (Lalo Schifrin)
Like I’ve always said, you can’t have enough Tuvan throat singing. I have no idea what they’re singing since as far as I know this song doesn’t have any lyrics.

Seu Jorge “Suffragette City” (David Bowie)
My wife and I may be the only two people in America who liked The Life Aquatic as a movie as well as a soundtrack.

Tarika “Malalako (Be My Baby)” (The Ronettes)
Tarika is a band from Madagascar who first found a large American audience on the Land Out Of Time album that Henry Kaiser and David Lindley recorded there. This very cosmopolitan song includes verses sung in English, French, and Malgasy.

Cat Empire “Hotel California” (The Eagles)
I first posted this song when Cover Freak was two months old and nobody was reading it. I’m posting it again to give Cat Empire some much-deserved exposure to a wider audience. And to make the French love me.

Kazik Staszewski “W glebokim dole (Way Down in the Hole)” (Tom Waits)
Readers with premium cable might recognize this song as the theme to the HBO series The Wire. This version comes from an album of Tom Waits covers that Mr. Staszewski released in 2003. Special thanks to Yaroslav for letting me know this album exists and to Uncle Flakey for helping me get my hands on the whole album.

We all know that it’s a man’s man’s man’s man’s world. But it would be a much less enjoyable place without the voices of women.

Cat Power “New York New York” (Frank Sinatra)
Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) is another of the darlings of the Pitchfork Media crowd. Her music has always had a pleasant languor, but all her songs have sounded very similar to me. On her latest CD she worked with a bunch of Memphis studio pros and came out with some music that reminds me of Joan Osborne.

Joan Osborne “Smiling Faces Sometimes” (The Undisputed Truth)
Speaking of Joan Osborne, here’s a slinky version of the Motown classic.

Anna Fermin’s Trigger Gospel “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps” (Doris Day)
I’ve always thought of Doris Day as the white bread woman’s answer to Pat Boone. Anna Fermin shows how her music can swing.

Sallly Timms “Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle To You” (Dolly Parton)
This is a great song to play for your jealous boyfriend or girlfriend.

P.J. Harvey and Eric Drew Feldman “Zaz Turned Blue” (Was (Not Was))
The original version of this song featured Mel Torme as a guest vocalist and is a classic example of twisted postmodern lounge music. P.J. Harvey wrings every last bit of emotion out of this weird story about what happened to a kid after his friend strangled him.

This week we’ve got both sides of Country and Western covers. Songs that sound country when they’re not supposed to and country songs that are a little different.

Brødrene Lövenstjerne “Nothing Compares 2 U” (Prince/Sinead O’Connor)
This is from a Norwegian Prince tribute album that he’s suing to have pulled. Since Prince’s little purple lawyers might send me a stern note demanding I take the song down I’d advise you to check it out while it’s still available.

The BossHoss “All The Things She Said” (t.A.T.u.)
A German band doing a country cover of a song by a prefab Russian pop duo, brought to you on the Internet. These are amazing times we’re living in, people.

The Knitters “Baby Out Of Jail” (Marty Robbins)
The Knitters are L.A. punk rockers X playing country music. Their album Poor Little Critter In The Road caused many snotty punk fans to take country music seriously.

The Groovegrass Boyz “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” (Bill Monroe)
This is what happens when Bootsy Collins plays bluegrass.

Cowboy Junkies “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (Hank Williams)
A very dreamy song with some beautiful pedal steel work.

California is in flames. It happens every year around this time, but it’s still pretty dramatic. Not to mention dangerous to lots of people. Here are a few tunes for my friends in the Golden State to listen to while they flee the fires.

GIANTfingers “Baby’s On Fire” (Brian Eno)
The original version is pretty foreboding. This one chugs along quite innocently, despite the disturbing lyrics.

Shirley Bassey “Light My Fire” (The Doors)
Shirley Bassey can certainly belt out a tune. She’s been doing a lot of covers lately of contemporary songs, apparently trying to follow the Tom Jones career track.

Albert Kuvezin and Yat-Kha “Play With Fire” (Rolling Stones)
Every time there are fires in California they end up busting some idiot for starting some of the fires intentionally. Remember kids, if you play with fire Smokey the Bear will maul you in your sleep.

The Goddard High School Stage Band “Fire” (Jimi Hendrix Experience)
I’m sure that the band director had big sideburns and desperately wanted the kids to think he was hip.

This Kid Named Miles “Ring Of Fire” (Anita Carter/Johnny Cash)
Let’s say you’re a reggae band and you want to cover a song that wasn’t written by Bob Marley or Peter Tosh. What’s the most logical choice? “Ring Of Fire” of course.