Various Artists
This Bird Has Flown
(Razor and Tie)

As with most tribute discs, this bizarro remake of Revolver (a 40th Anniversary Tribute!) has it’s ups and downs. It’s certainly an impressive cast of characters, from Low to Ben Harper to Rhett Miller to Ben Lee, the Cowboy Junkies, the Donnas, Nellie McKay, Mindy Smith and more. We get the Donnas doing an almost note perfect “Drive My Car”, an almost intolerable “Norwegian Wood” reimagining from the Fiery Furnaces, a somber (what else?) reading of “Nowhere Man” from Low and so on. Ben Harper even takes Michelle to Jamaica for a strange kind of spooky reggae, which is still pretty cool. I started in feeling ready to throw the damn thing out the window, but I think that I might hang on to it after all, or at least burn a few of the songs. - Will Seeley