November 23, 2025

by Ann Powers

This week, our critic presents an argument in favor of singing someone else’s song, and praises those who manage to bring something new to even the most familiar tune.

Erik Bardin

Hello skillful interpreters,

As we march inexorably toward what I hope won’t be a cataclysmic end to 2025, music nerds are taking shelter from current events in the usual way: immersing ourselves in year-end list-making. Expect this newsletter to dwell on such activity for the next six weeks or so. It was a great year for music, and I’m excited to share my highlights. In the meantime, I’m refining my choices, cramming on November releases and, because I’m that always-overthinking girl, pondering what it all means.

One thing on my mind: a seeming shift in the definition of the original, intertwined with the seemingly contradictory cravings for both comfort and novelty. The novelty part is an aspect of capitalism; the system will always work to make you plunk down cash for something shiny. Originality is more complicated. Self-authored songs, for example, have been the gold standard in popular music for decades, the primary way artists can reveal their most personal truths and prove their integrity.

Recently, though, the advent of social media has resurrected an older way of thinking about songs. With tons of hopeful unknowns flooding the platforms with their own takes on everything from the most overdone chestnut to deep album cuts, great interpretations are regaining respect and even centrality in pop. We’re slowly, sloppily getting a new Great American (but really global) songbook. And listeners are learning a lot from all of these covers, which at their best encourage us to think differently about songs we thought we knew.

Covers have been on my mind this week because the legendary podcaster and critic Wesley Morris devoted an episode of his show Cannonball to figuring them out, bringing in one of my favorite geniuses, Cecile McLorin Salvant, as his guest. The occasion was his participation in NPR partner station WXPN’s annual listener-driven year-end list, which this year focuses on covers. You can check out Morris’ favorites here, and mark your calendars for the WXPN countdown, airing and streaming beginning on December 4.

In their conversation, Morris and Salvant (who is a jazz singer, but never confined by that term) thoroughly explore the sweet science of the cover, from its sibling relationship to jazz standards and classical repertoire to Salvant’s distinctive interpretive approach. (Her reimagining of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” is one of Morris’ ultimate faves, and one of mine too.) Their exchange made me want to make my own list of favorite covers, not of all time, but from this year. Despite the renaissance of musical interpretation, most best-of lists still focus on “original” songs; I’m gently suggesting here that we check that bias.

To cover a song — and then, to attentively listen to a cover — is to study it, rethink it, sometimes reassemble it, honor it and challenge its established frame. While the vast majority of folks belting “My Heart Will Go On” into their phones may not be thinking hard, I’ve found plenty of current covers by innovative musicians that have helped me reconsider all kinds of things: musical legacies, current political issues, my own listening habits.

Here’s a list of my favorite covers from this past year. You’ll notice that I didn’t find them via TikTok or Reels; some I experienced live, and others exist for you to find on recordings. What unites them is the deep artistry their makers brought to the process of returning and relearning something they, and we, may have taken for granted.

(A note: Three artists whom I adore, the gospel-soul matriarch Mavis Staples, the experimental jazz singer Theo Bleckmann and the singer-songrwriter Madi Diaz, all released covers albums as I was compiling this list. Each deserves to be listened to in full; I can’t single out one track. Please seek them out.)

Anohni and the Johnsons, “Sometimes I Feel Like Motherless Child”

This spiritual is a staple of the Anohni’s sets, an acknowledgment of the titanically gifted singer and trans activist’s indebtedness to the jazz singer Little Jimmy Scott, who recorded it in 1969. Under the weight of increasing threats to non-heteronormative people, Anohni’s dramatic take at Knoxville’s Big Ears Festival in March resonates more than ever, and she made sure that its desolation was fully felt, extending her keening for nearly eight minutes. It became a dirge as wide as the river Styx and then, like the best laments, a vessel carrying our spirits beyond the darkness into a space of beauty that defies extermination.

Brad Mehldau, “Thirteen”

The main event on pianist Mehldau’s album Ride Into the Sun is his reinterpretation of Elliott Smith’s songbook; he offers lovely forays into the late singer-songwriter's delicate compositions. But I’m most taken by the loving caress he gives Big Star’s most famous ballad, which profoundly influenced Smith and his entire generation of wayward Gen Xers. Gently releasing the tension Alex Chilton brought to this ultimate expression of teen romantic angst, Mehldau transforms “Thirteen” into both an embrace of both the tender side of youth and of the act of remembering — free of nostalgia, but open to healing.

Lankum, “Ghost Town”

Sometimes a cover can uncover something that was obscured or downplayed in a song’s original version. In the Specials’ 1981 classic “Ghost Town,” a certain darkness is unmistakable; its diminished chords and lyrics about youth violence amid economic collapse form a dismal foundation. But for many, its jaunty horns and skanking beat made it the New Wave “Monster Mash.” Irish regents of darkness Lankum swathe “Ghost Town” in their signature drone, saturating the lament in fury with an outro they devised by playing around with synths in the studio and landing on “the scaldiest ‘90s techno.” The Specials’ message about the devastation caused by harsh governance is as relevant now as it was in Margaret Thatcher’s day, and this cover makes it perfectly clear.

Ravi Coltrane and Brandee Younger, Translinear Light

For this pick, I’m highlighting an entire set instead of just one song. Jazz harpist Brandee Younger has spent much of her career cultivating a spiritual and artistic connection to the late Alice Coltrane, whose work defines that instrument’s place in contemporary music for many people. She’s also long embraced the mentorship of Alice and John Coltrane’s son, the saxophonist Ravi Coltrane. Only in 2024, however, did she gain the opportunity to play Alice’s own harp. Since then she has recorded a gorgeous album, Gadabout Season, and toured extensively with Ravi. I was lucky to see them present their Translinear Light tour this summer at the Burlington Jazz Festival; their interplay reflects the love of chosen family and a shared sense of mission, while the presence of that harp adds an emotionally resonant new layer to their legacy-making, one that taps into the insights Alice herself cultivated through many years of practice and devotion.

Systir, “Army Dreamers”

It’s fascinating to observe what songs by my favorites become repertoire. “Army Dreamers,” from my heroine Kate Bush’s 1980 album Never for Ever, was a modest hit upon release, but with its rounded acoustic guitar part and lacy melody, it’s become a go-to for choral groups and solo TikTokkers alike. I loved the 2024 version by London glam band The Last Dinner Party, which subtly accelerated to stress the disorienting feeling of mourning a fallen soldier seemingly too young to die. But it’s this take, by the women’s ensemble linked to Ireland’s famous Anúna choir, that comes closest to the quiet agony Bush initially invoked, while remaining unique. Systir member and lead vocalist Ash McGlynn understands the song’s central tension, between propriety and rage, and her choirmates support her with exquisite empathy.

Frànçois and the Atlas Mountains featuring Yasmine Hamdan, “L’homme à la rivière”

Sometimes all it takes for a cover to be great is the right voice matching with the material. The Lebanese-by-way-of-Paris singer-songwriter Yasmine Hamdan, long a leading light in experimental Arabic pop, has an alto that’s rich yet diaphanous, evoking images of the English waterways that inspired “River Man,” Nick Drake’s melancholy ballad about existential drift. The mysterious French orch-pop master Frànçois Marry and his ensemble swathe Hamdan’s occasionally double-tracked vocals in translucent electronics that accentuate the slightly bemused sensuality the translation of Drake’s words to French creates; it’s as if that most recessive genius were given a new body, one more open to feeling the sunlight.

Brian Jackson featuring Black Thought, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”

Can an artist cover themselves? I say yes, if there’s a real twist to the proceedings. Brian Jackson was the poet and vocalist Gil Scott-Heron’s musical partner, and the music man behind his most iconic hit (the original, by the way, had a starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s blockbuster about radicalism in the ICE age, One Battle After Another.) Here Jackson convenes a killer band and bequeaths Scott-Heron’s immortal rap to the Roots’ lyrical master Black Thought, who nurtures and transforms it for this time of QR codes, drones and, as is always necessary, “correcting the transgressions of the past.”

Kassa Overall, “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)”

“You’ve got a bunch of coiling, interrelated songs — jazz turned into rap turned back into jazz,” my colleague and fellow columnist Sheldon Pearce told Robin Hilton about this track from drummer Overall’s album of hip-hop covers Cream earlier this year. When I asked him for a favorite cover to include on this list, he pointed to this track, and I, too, love its fun, funky rendering of poetic justice. Ishmael Butler and Digable Planets were the adorable poster kids of the ‘90s jazz-rap wave, maybe not taken as seriously as they should have been because they were so cute and commercially successful. Shaping a straight-ahead jazz version of this song that retains its bubbly attractiveness is a gift Overall gives to the trio, and to all of us, who can now hear exactly how legit Digable Planets always were.

Mon Laferte, “Mi Hombre”

Sometimes a cover is part of a relay, carrying a song from singer to singer so that it remains alive on popular culture’s open road. The Chilean-Mexican chanteuse-plus Mon Laferte put her hands out to receive one of the oldest known torch songs with this hushed, intense version of the sex worker’s lament originally entitled “Mon Homme.” A hit 105 years ago for the French actress and pop sensation Mistinguett, the song, a wail of erotic enthrallment that exposed the brutal realities of an abusive relationship — crossed the ocean to become the sad signature ballad of comedienne Fanny Brice and, when she won an Oscar playing Brice in 1965’s Funny Girl, of Barbra Streisand. All of those versions heave with pathos and strings; translating it to Spanish, Mon Laferte brings “Mon Homme” back to its textual origins as a desolate confession accompanied only by a gypsy jazz guitar. Mon Laferte vocalizes calmly, acceptingly. A hint of Auto-tune brings this classic into the new century.

Jason Isbell, “You Better Move On”

I don’t have a link to this performance; I’m hoping you’ll soon be able to find it thanks to the fine videographers for the Country Music Hall of Fame, where I saw Isbell perform last week at the opening of Muscle Shoals: Low Rhythm Rising. That exhibit tells the story of the Alabama nexus where mostly white studio musicians and mostly Black recording artists forged an essential foundation for Southern soul, stars from Aretha Franklin to Paul Simon and the Rolling Stones traveled to put some red clay and grease into their sound. Jason Isbell began his career there decades later as a staff songwriter at Fame studios. In a three-song set on a program that also featured Shoals Swamper Spooner Oldham and fellow legends Dan Penn and Bettye Lavette, Isbell started with this gem from the region’s spiritual founding father, Arthur Alexander, a soul patriarch who never got his full due as a commercial artist. Isbell’s clear-headed, egoless delivery of Alexander’s early-'60s ballad fulfilled an essential mandate of musical interpretation: to join in a conversation with history and with artists who may no longer be able to speak for themselves.

Newsletter continues after sponsor message

NPR Classical

A lip-twister for the embouchure crowd ...

Listen sponsor free to All Songs Considered & Alt.Latino with NPR MUSIC+

Introducing NPR Music+, a new way to support what you love and explore new music and conversations sponsor-free. NPR Music+ includes two podcasts with one convenient subscription: All Songs Considered and Alt.Latino, both sponsor-free.

In addition, you'll have access to a brand new podcast series from Ann Powers and editor Daoud Tyler-Ameen about how the songs we love survive over decades. Learn more and support us at plus.npr.org/NPRmusic

Get NPR Music+

NPR Music+

My pal Daoud Tyler-Ameen and I are back this week with another episode of our All Songs+ podcast focusing on classic songs. This time, we encourage you to scream as we explore the complexities of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine.

Listen to your local NPR station.

Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream.

Need a new playlist?

Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music

What do you think of today's email?

We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org

Enjoying this newsletter?

Forward to a friend! They can sign up here.

Looking for more great content?

Check out all of our newsletter offerings
— including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more!

You received this message because you're subscribed to NPR Music emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002

Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy