July 2 (a day late) — “True Blue” as covered by Winter Gloves (featuring Hannah Georgas)

If you only listened to one song yesterday, I hope that you made it “True Blue” as covered by Winter Gloves (2011, from the compilation album Paper Bag Records is True Blue).

I behaved badly yesterday, and didn’t devote the necessary time to posting on This is That Song. I won’t make a habit of posting songs a day late, and I hope that you won’t hold it against me.

Winter Gloves is a synth-pop band from Montréal. I know absolutely nothing about them, and I only have two of their songs in my catalog. Both came as free downloads from the Paper Bag Records website. To be fair, this isn’t even about Winter Gloves. This is totally about Paper Bag Records. It’s also about TiTS alumnae Hannah Georgas, who is the guest vocalist on this song.

In the spring of 2011, the magnificent Paper Bag Records curated a compilation tribute to the Madonna album True Blue. Nine of their bands each took one song from Madonna’s 1986 album True Blue. In the summer, they made that album available as a free download from their website. It features a bunch of TiTS alumni:

• Young Galaxy doing a pretty amazing “Open Your Heart”
• The Rural Alberta Advantage doing a version of “Live To Tell”. I love the RAA, but I really hate their song on this album. Amy Cole takes the lead vocals, which isn’t a good thing. I’ve often said that she’s one of the best-looking women in indie rock, but she has no business being in that otherwise brilliant band. She’s pretty good at doing that “Ooooooh ooooooh” backing vocal stuff, and she’s really good at looking hot, but she shouldn’t sing. That’s my harsh criticism of the day.
• PS I Love You doing “Where’s The Party”. I don’t remember the original song, and I’m sure that this is a very free interpretation, but I really like what they did here.
• You Say Party doing “Love Makes The World Go Round”. Again, I don’t remember the original version, but you’re pretty much getting a You Say Party song here.

There are, perhaps four really good ones on this tribute album. In my opinion, yesterday’s song is head and shoulders above the rest. This is that song:

Hannah Georgas’ singing is exquisite. Exquisite. If that’s not enough to validate the price of free admission, just listen to the chorus. I really love the Spector-esque “wall of sound” production in the chorus, which is punctuated by a send-up of the trademark “Be My Baby” drum part.

I also like that in the chorus, they use real piano. It’s in contrast to the synth-y sound that the rest of the song has.

I’m not wild about the saxophone solo in the second chorus, but it’s not enough to make me change my opinion of the song. It’s amazing. Overall, while you might think that this sounds pretty true to the original, I’ll invite you to go back and listen to the original (or watch the video, anyway. What you’ll find is that this is actually a pretty inventive cover.

Download Paper Bag Records is True Blue from their website for free! While you’re there, support the label and its bands by buying some records.