In case you haven’t heard by now, Merge Records is turning 20! Primarily forming as a place for Superchunk to release music, the North Carolina based taste makers have done good for themselves over the last two decades, shelling out works from a few folks you may have heard of: Arcade Fire, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Magnetic Fields, Spoon, Dinosaur Jr., Camera Obscura, and Conor Oberst are some that come to mind.
Anyhow, to celebrate the occasion, Merge Records is basically going all out. We already told you about XX Merge, but do you know about SCORE! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers? On Tuesday, Merge shelled out a 20-track compilation of non-Merge bands (Death Cab, Okkervil, Ryan Adams) covering classics from Merge favorites (Superchunk’s “My Noise”, Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #1”). Yeah, needless to say, the whole thing is kind of a big deal.
But just in case you aren’t quite convinced – better hurry! Only 7,500 copies were produced, or have bitten off all your finger nails as you await your copy of the comp, Merge Records is currently streaming SCORE! in its entirety merge.com.
CORE! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers Tracklist:
01. Quasi – “Beautiful Things” (3Ds cover)
02. Les Savy Fav – “Precision Auto” (Superchunk cover)
03. The Shins – “Plenty Is Never Enough” (Tenement Halls cover)
04. St. Vincent & The National – “Sleep All Summer” (Crooked Fingers cover)
05. Broken Social Scene – “Complications” (The Clean cover)
06. Ryan Adams – “Like a Fool” (Superchunk cover)
07. Bright Eyes – “Papa Was a Rodeo” (The Magnetic Fields cover)
08. Lavender Diamond – “New Ways of Living” (Destroyer cover)
09. The Apples In Stereo – “King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 3” (Neutral Milk Hotel cover)
10. Laura Cantrell – “Cowboy on the Moon” (Lambchop cover)
11. Bill Callahan – “Santa Maria” (Versus cover)
12. Barbara Manning – “Through With People” (Portastatic cover)
13. The Mountain Goats – “Drug Life” (East River Pipe cover)
14. The New Pornographers – “Don’t Destroy This Night” (The Rock*A*Teens cover)
15. Tracey Thorn & Jens Lekman – “Yeah! Oh, Yeah!” (The Magnetic Fields cover)
16. The Hive Dwellers – “My Noise” (Superchunk cover)
17. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – “The Numbered Head” (Robert Pollard cover)
18. Okkervil River – “All You Little Suckers” (East River Pipe cover)
19. Death Cab For Cutie – “Kicked In” (Superchunk cover)
20. Times New Viking – “Neighborhood #1” (Arcade Fire cover)
