Everything seemed to be in order for their debut, but Rae was unceremoniously fired by their record label because she had gotten pregnant, with the group disbanding shortly after. Having grown up listening to a lot of L7 and Veruca Salt, Rae’s first foray into music was fronting a gritty riot grrl group called Helen. No, she actually began in alternative rock. (As it turns out, this was only 1/3 correct).īut we’re gonna backtrack around two years before that, when a young artist named Corinne Bailey Rae released her debut self-titled album and instantly made herself one of the UK’s most buzzed-about neo-soul singer-songwriters.Ĭorinne Bailey Rae did not start out as a neo-soul artist. This was largely seen as the breaking point when the transatlantic dam finally broke, to the point where people were already predicting a third British invasion led by these three women. All of this culminated in the genre’s mega-selling American breakthrough in 2008, when its leading lights Duffy, Estelle, and Adele all scored major transatlantic hits. This sleeper movement eventually seeped into other segments of British music, too, most notably in the late-00s uptick of indie rock bands fronted by gospel-influenced screamers like Sneaky Sound System, the Noisettes, and Florence and the Machine. Artists like Joss Stone and Lily Allen were beginning to make waves with their particular brand of soul-inflected pop alongside folksier, more rock-edged artists like Dido and KT Tunstall. It was Amy Winehouse who kickstarted the movement with her best-selling albums Frank and Back in Black, but by the middle of the decade, it was becoming a force in its own right. But if we’re talking fallow periods, we have to look at the mid-2000s, perhaps the only time when the two sides of the Atlantic were at their most segregated musically. British music has its peaks in America, most notably the mid-60s, late 70s and early 80s, and the late 90s. Hell, we don’t even think of British music as ‘European’ in that regard I mean, can you even imagine One Direction or the Wanted being part of Eurovision? Terms like ‘British Invasion’ don’t really mean anything to us, because it all seems like the same ecosystem.īut the divide between the two scenes is a lot more apparent when you actually live in one of those two countries, and there are times when lots of British music crosses over into America, and there are times when it doesn’t. To us, they’re all just English-speaking white people who make the same kind of music, share the same trends, and have the same kind of music industry. Worldwide, the boundaries between British and American music are so blurry and indefinable that those of us who live outside the Anglo-American sphere often conflate the two music scenes. So let’s put our records on and investigate this strange phenomenon from this strangest of pop hits. Then again, I thought the same of ‘ Forgot About Dre’, and that got memed to hell and back on TikTok, so really, what do I know? No doubt, Corinne Bailey Rae made a mark with her signature song in the mid-2000s, but it never struck me as a song that could particularly appeal to Gen Z. At the very least, I’d rather have ironic politician-inspired band names on here than Tom McDonald or something.īut this is still an unusual choice of cover. This was not an artistic project that seemed destined for any kind of pop stardom, but given the collective societal upheaval we’ve been subject to the past few years, I think we’ve seen worse.

So it’s amusing to me that I should be covering them now, or that they should end up on this blog at all. It made the rounds on Twitter before they even had a properly released album.

How? Their ridiculous goddamn name, that’s how. I was actually made aware of Ritt Momney long before I even found out about their cover. So yeah, these guys have finally netted themselves a Top 40 single, huh. That’s, that’s not a joke, that’s their actual name. That’s right, today, we are taking a look at the latest hit cover song that’s making the rounds, a cover of Corinne Bailey Rae’s ‘Put Your Records on’, courtesy of Ritt… Momney… So why not talk about a current pop song that’s also a cover? Given how barren the charts have been in 2021 so far, I think I might need to resort to this more often. Now, usually, I keep the current pop stuff to the pop song reviews, and the covers to Cover Me Badd, but this time, I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. And today, we’re gonna be doing something a little different. Welcome back to Cover Me Badd, where we look at good covers, bad covers and what makes them tick. “Don’t touch my hair / When it’s the feelings I wear / Don’t touch my soul / When it’s the rhythm I know”

Put your records on lyrics ritt