Rhino’s Got You Covered: The Flaming Lips, Pet Shop Boys, Alanis Morissette, and Steve Earle

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. This week, we’re going with a foursome of live covers, including one from a radio session, one recorded in Rio, another from an MTV Unplugged performance, and a closing number captured “live somewhere in North America.”

Let’s get started, shall we?

1.    The Flaming Lips, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (2005): This cover of the Kylie Minogue classic was recorded for a KEXP radio session, but it’s taken from the Lips’ YOSHIMI WINS! EP, which also features the band covering Beck (“The Golden Age”) and Radiohead (“Knives Out”).

2.    Pet Shop Boys, “Girls and Boys” (1994): This was kind of a turnabout-is-fair-play situation, since Blur released a Pet Shop Boys remix of this very song, one which – in addition to being included on a single – also found its way onto the Japanese release of their album PARKLIFE. This cover, meanwhile, initially saw release on the single for “Paninaro '95” before eventually finding a home on the expanded version of the duo’s VERY album.

3.    Alanis Morissette, “King of Pain” (1999): Whenever an artist does an Unplugged performance, it’s become de rigueur for them to also include a cover song, one which is either a perfect fit or a complete surprise. In this case, the Police song selected by Morissette was both.

4.    Steve Earle, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding” (2003): JUST AN AMERICAN BOY, Earle’s second official live album arrived a little over a decade after its predecessor, 1991’s SHUT UP AND DIE LIKE AN AVIATOR, and it’s almost all originals. This is one of only two exceptions (the other being Townes Van Zandt’s “"Rex's Blues/Ft. Worth Blues”), but it’s a perfect fit amongst his original tunes.