{"product_id":"various-american-football-covers","title":"VARIOUS - American Football (Covers)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: #ff0000;\"\u003eLP - Limited Edition Frosted Glass Vinyl housed in a deluxe die cut LP outer sleeve with printed cardstock innersleeve. Includes download card. Released in conjunction with the 25th Anniversary Edition of their self-titled album.  \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlongside and in celebration of \u003cem\u003eAmerican Football\u003c\/em\u003e (25th Anniversary Edition) arrives \u003cem\u003eAmerican Football\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eCovers\u003c\/em\u003e), an ingeniously programmed set that highlights not only the way American Football fueled an eventual “emo revival,” but also and perhaps more important how their songs and sounds infiltrated and inspired so many corners of music. From string-swept and imaginative folk to idiosyncratic international pop, from intricate instrumental splendor to open-road shoegaze wonder, (Covers) traces—or at least teases—the endless ways the source material has cut across borders of generation, genre, and geography. It affirms just how important the nine songs three college kids cut in four days remain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKinsella’s lyrics on \u003cem\u003eAmerican Football\u003c\/em\u003e were specific in detail but vague in situation. What we knew was that a relationship was collapsing with less animosity than regret, a sense of future nostalgia shaping words that asked how an ex-couple might feel as the summer passed and they maybe saw each other again. This framework, then, is a perfect invitation for different singers to climb inside and find their own interpretation. There is, for instance, a sweet sense of hope to \u003cstrong\u003eIron \u0026amp; Wine\u003c\/strong\u003e’s opening rendition of “\u003cem\u003eNever Meant\u003c\/em\u003e,” \u003cstrong\u003eSam Beam\u003c\/strong\u003e’s singular falsetto pealing like an apology, hoping to pull his lover back toward a relationship’s center. \u003cstrong\u003eEthel Cain\u003c\/strong\u003e, meanwhile, lingers and wallows in the uncertainty of the paradoxically titled “\u003cem\u003eFor Sure\u003c\/em\u003e.” Above long, soft drones and guitars that twinkle like stars being extinguished forever, she settles into this song about never really knowing what’s happening. Doom is a foregone conclusion. It is beautiful and tragic, every scene of being together rendered as a pure hypothetical.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn one of the most faithful interpretations here, \u003cstrong\u003eM.A.G.S.\u003c\/strong\u003e borrows the bitterness and conviction of “\u003cem\u003eI’ll See You When We’re Both Not So Emotional\u003c\/em\u003e,” less a break-up song than a reckoning with the breaks reality sometimes requires. His keyboard-traced and drum-driven version is sweet but sharp, a reminder that a stop can be an act of self-care. \u003cstrong\u003eBlondshell\u003c\/strong\u003e slinks into a similar realization during “\u003cem\u003eThe Summer Ends\u003c\/em\u003e,” taking shelter beneath a haze of multi-tracked harmonies and circular guitars to wonder what it’s going to take to move toward happiness—for herself and her partner, either together or apart. “Both been so unhappy,” she sings faintly after a fever breaks. “So let’s just see what happens\/when summer ends.” Appropriate for a band who could never have predicted what the future held for these songs, American Football is about not knowing what’s up ahead. Each band here sings that eternal plight in their own tone and tongue.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen American Football wrote and recorded these nine songs in 1999, they were also punk kids who were becoming interested in jazz and modern classical. The touchstones that always appear are Miles Davis, Steve Reich, and The Sea and Cake, but the bigger lesson is their interest in engaging other textures and approaches than distortion and drive. That’s clear in the sparkling guitars and shifting rhythms, in the traces of trumpet and whiffs of keys. And it is obvious on (Covers) in the assorted shapes these songs take.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough never forsaking the tune itself, \u003cstrong\u003eManchester Orchestra\u003c\/strong\u003e imbue “\u003cem\u003eStay Home\u003c\/em\u003e” with Reich’s pulsing repetition and Electric Miles’ opalescent glow. They find a way to reconnect the song to its burgeoning references. \u003cstrong\u003eYvette Young\u003c\/strong\u003e, of \u003cstrong\u003eCovet\u003c\/strong\u003e, uses webs of guitar, layers of granular synthesis, and lines of mercurial strings to turn the once-skeletal “\u003cem\u003eYou Know I Should Be Leaving Soon\u003c\/em\u003e” into a lush world. And there at the end, \u003cstrong\u003eJohn McEntire\u003c\/strong\u003e, busy back in 1999 scheming Tortoise’s \u003cem\u003eStandards and The Sea\u003c\/em\u003e and Cake’s \u003cem\u003eOui\u003c\/em\u003e, routes “\u003cem\u003eThe One With the Wurlitzer\u003c\/em\u003e” into a Motorik anthem. It feels as emotionally unsure as all of American Football, the beat pushing forever forward while the bittersweet keys seem to turn backward, staring off at what might have been.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the sidewalk outside of the famous house on the cover of \u003cem\u003eAmerican Football\u003c\/em\u003e, several lines mark where \u003cstrong\u003eChris Strong\u003c\/strong\u003e likely stood when he snapped the photo. They are invitations to capture the scene, just as Strong did in 1999. But on the cover of (Covers), nine different images show the home during subsequent phases of the night, the glow from the upstairs window eventually overrunning the frame. That’s more fun than a mere replication, the same lesson that this compilation holds: Eschewing mimics for acts that took a little bit of American Football and made their own way, (Covers) is a testament to the imagination not only of the original but to those who continue to find it twenty-five years after the band assumed they were done. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Polyvinyl Recording Co.","offers":[{"title":"LP - Frosted Glass Vinyl","offer_id":49033809494361,"sku":"SDZ-40418","price":31.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0588\/3455\/0945\/files\/American_Football__Covers__-_Various_-_CD_-_2024.jpg?v=1781246127","url":"https:\/\/spindizzyrecords.com\/products\/various-american-football-covers","provider":"Spindizzy Dublin","version":"1.0","type":"link"}