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Badass Covers Collection Vol. 2

Thirty-one more covers, and this volume leans toward the reinterpretations that reveal something the original was hiding.

The second volume

Where a first covers collection tends to gather the obvious triumphs, a second has to dig. What this one finds is a set of readings that mostly succeed by reduction — taking a busy record and removing things until whatever was underneath becomes audible.

There is also a strand here worth noticing: several tracks come from television talent shows, which is a format usually treated as beneath serious consideration and which occasionally produces something real.

What to listen for

Amber Mark's "Love Is Stronger Than Pride" is the best thing here. Taking on Sade requires a specific kind of nerve, and Mark's version finds a percussive, unresolved quality the original keeps smooth.

Daniel Caesar's "Made to Fall in Love" and Anthony David's "Amber" are the smoothest, and Tank's "I Can't Make You Love Me" takes on the Bonnie Raitt record that almost nobody improves.

JEJ Vinson's "Passionfruit" reworks Drake, and it is a genuine improvement — the melody turns out to be considerably stronger than the original arrangement lets on.

Big Bub's "Zoom" takes on the Commodores, and Avery Wilson's "Song For You" the Leon Russell song that Donny Hathaway made definitive.

Leela James's "A Change Is Gonna Come" is the Sam Cooke, and she is one of very few singers who can approach it without embarrassment.

Jon Batiste's "What A Wonderful World" and Leslie Odom Jr.'s "(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons" are the standards, both handled by musicians with genuine jazz training.

Yvonne Elliman's "Hello Stranger" is the oldest recording here — the Barbara Lewis song, from a singer best known for Saturday Night Fever and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Gallant and Andra Day's "Cruisin'" reworks Smokey Robinson.

Go deeper

Donny Hathaway's Live contains the definitive "A Song for You" and is the record that most of these singers are measuring themselves against, knowingly or not.

Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" is worth understanding in context — written after Cooke was turned away from a Louisiana motel, released shortly after his death, and one of the most important records in American history.

And Jon Batiste is worth following properly: a New Orleans musician from a major musical family, with far more range than the late-night bandleader role suggested.

Why covers earn their place: a great cover is a reading, not a tribute — it tells you what the singer heard in the song that the original left unsaid. Every track here changes the argument of its source, which is the only real justification for recording someone else's tune.

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