Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffstake on more covers

photo by Drew Reynolds/Shout Factory!

Their interpretations on the last two volumes were great. This one promises to be too... 

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs have announced that Under The Covers Vol. 3 will be released on Shout! Factory on Nov. 12.

Having celebrated the ’60s and ’70s with Under The Covers Vol. 1 and 2, the duo has now selected some of their favorite tracks from the 1980’s to give the Sid and Susie treatment. Under The Covers Vol. 3 was produced by Sweet and Hoffs, who also provided liner notes.

Fourteen songs have been recaptured on Under the Covers Vol. 3—plucked from the discographies of Tom Petty, the Pretenders, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Smiths, Roxy Music, the Go-Go’s, the English Beat, the dB’s and more.

A deluxe version available on iTunes will feature 3 additional tracks, the Clash’s “Train in Vain,” Marshall Crenshaw’s “You’re My Favorite Waste of Time” and Prince’s “I Would Die 4 U.”
The album was recorded in Sweet’s Lolina Green studio in Los Angeles, with Hoffs recording most of her vocals in her home studio. Playing alongside Ric Menck (drums), Dennis Taylor (guitars and some bass) and Andrew Brassell (12-string electric on two tracks), Sweet and Hoffs let their exuberance shine through. They aren’t just vividly recapturing the nuances of the original recordings, they’re channeling the wide-eyed exhilaration they felt the first time they heard them on the radio or on precious 45s.

Sweet says, “I was in high school during the first three years of the ’80s, so the stuff I listened to as a teenager was mostly during those three years. Some of it was music from the late ’70s, like Elvis Costello and XTC, which I’d listened to from junior high onward. So some of the songs that show up on this record were real touchstones for me—in particular the R.E.M. song “Sitting Still,” which was on the B-side of their Hib-Tone 45.”

Hoffs adds, “We did get experimental and veer from the original arrangements on some songs, but for me it was also being able to look at the ’80s and have a different sense of that time period. As someone who was into the’60s, I had a weird resistance to what was going on during the ’80s and for years beyond it. But when Matthew and I were crafting the list, we immediately gravitated to R.E.M. and all the guitar-driven indie rock and pop, that part of the ’80s. So we started there and then expanded out.”

Under The Covers Vol. 3 Track Listing:

1. Sitting Still (R.E.M.)
2. Girls Talk (Dave Edmunds, written by Elvis Costello)
3. Big Brown Eyes (The dB's)
4. Kid (Pretenders)
5. Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty)
6. Save It For Later (The English Beat)
7. They Don’t Know (Kirsty MacColl)
8. The Bulrushes (The Bongos)
9. Our Lips Are Sealed (The Go-Go’s)
10. How Soon Is Now (The Smiths)
11. More Than This (Roxy Music)
12. Towers of London (XTC)
13. Killing Moon (Echo & the Bunnymen)
14. Trouble (Lindsey Buckingham)

 iTunes Deluxe Version: Exclusive Tracks
* Train in Vain (the Clash)
* You’re My Favorite Waste of Time (Marshall Crenshaw)
* I Would Die 4 U (Prince)