Rhino’s Got You Covered: Angelic Upstarts, Terrorvision, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and Elvis Costello

It’s Wednesday, so it must be time to take another dip into the Rhino catalog and trot out a new quartet of cover songs that you may or may not have heard before. Let’s get started, shall we?

•    Angelic Upstarts, “The Young Ones” (1979): It’s a Cliff Richard classic, of course, but it’s known to an entire generation of Britcom fans as  the theme song to the adventures of UK college students Vyvyan, Rick, Neil, and Mike. In this instance, however, it was the B-side of the Angelic Upstarts’ biggest UK hit, “Teenage Warning,” and quickly became a staple of the band’s live set.

•    Terrorvision, “Coming Up” (1992): Originally released as the B-side to the band’s “My House,” this raucous Paul McCartney cover can more readily be found on the expanded edition of their FORMALDEHYDE album reissued by Cherry Red Records, but it can be found even more readily within Rhino’s digital catalog as a standalone track.

•    Joey Dee and the Starlighters, “Psychotic Reaction” (1966): For the most part, the average music fan probably knows Joey Dee and the Starlighters for their biggest hit, “Peppermint Twist,” which was released in 1961. Half a decade later, however, Joey and the boys released their HITSVILLE album, which included this Count Five cover.

•    Elvis Costello, “Days” (1991): Originally recorded in 1989 for Costello’s covers album, an LP which ended up being shelved by Warner Brothers for half a dozen years before finally seeing release in 1995, this Kinks cover managed to see the light of day a bit earlier than its album-mates thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of Wim Wenders’ Until the End of the World.