There’s still plenty we have discovered, and it’s hidden inside songs that we’ve heard a million times. In fact, you can feel that the artist encouraged our endless searches every time their songs get played on the Oldies station. After all, how can, after so many years, so many songs from the 1960s continue to have this power over modern audiences?
There’s no expiration date to the greatest songs of the 1960s. But what about the theory of so many that pop music never improved past that point? Is this the reason why newer bands and AI models pilfer the discography of the greats and pass those musical ideas off as their own compositions?
hooyoosay is certainly a band that feels a great deal of debt toward the 1960s. The group’s EP collection, “Discover This Cover,” is not only a way to honour the classic songwriters or to prove their continued relevance, but an invitation to an old-style rock’ n’ roll party soundtracked by music that’s been approved by listeners over decades.
Judging by the selection of covers, hooyoosay’s quartet of musicians also understand the humour, joy and sense of counterculture mischief that created 1960s pop-rock. The album opener, after all, is Donovan’s epochal “Mellow Yellow,” a track that featured Paul McCartney on the original and reportedly included references to smoking banana peels. Here, the band delivers a warm, almost garage-rock-like rendition of the classic.
“Pretty Belinda”, with its innocent-sounding, children’s TV show feel, may well make you want to exclaim, “Wow, haven’t heard this in a while!” And, the group’s retro psych-pop cover of “Bus Stop” by The Hollies nicely balances out the collection with a couple of slightly more obscure pop gems.
But it’s really down to business as hooyoosay goes for two of the decade’s biggest singles, “Maggie May” and “All Day and All of the Night.” The former has an almost Teenage Fanclub quality to it, while The Kinks’ track is delivered as a spirited faux-reggae.
Where does it all leave us? At the end of a party, it can just be restarted the moment that you play back the record. hooyoosay captures the spirit of the 1960s, but do it in their way, adding their original take to songs of the era and helping us remember why so many listeners care so deeply about this period in pop music history.
Social media links
