Plenty of musicians have recorded albums of covers, typically at the tail end of their careers, once the creative well has started to run dry and original material is in short supply.
However, Sonny Smith’s 2013 album 100 Records, Volume 3 is not your standard album of covers, and it’s more of a creative peak than a trough.
That’s because all 100 bands covered in the project are fictional.
It began as a visual art project. Smith challenged 100 artists to create album art for non-existent bands. Once that work was done, he set about imagining the personas of each band, and created songs by each invented group.
The impressive thing about the project is not that he came up with 200 songs (that’s one A-side and one B-side for each made-up musical act) but that when compiled, the songs kind of work together. They sound like Smith and the fictional bands all at once.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The band name is fantastic. South East Lake Otter Champs. I mean, who doesn’t want that on a band shirt / sports jersey?
2. The uneasy mood is likely a result of the way it alternates between major and minor. Reminds me very much of the song we listened to in week 447.
3. There’s something about the recording quality (not sure if it’s the production or the post-production) that makes it sound like a lost B-side from decades ago.
Recommended listening activity:
Exploring your own alter egos.