Cover Thursdays - TV on the Radio edition

I was giving the new TV on the Radio album, Nine Type of Light, a listen/watch yesterday. I like the ambition of the concept...

Nine Types of Light is as much an album as it is a movie by TV on the Radio. The movie is meant to be a visual re-imagining of the record, and includes a music video for every song on the album. The band personally asked their friends and the filmmakers they admired to help direct the music videos.

... But have to say that the music left me feeling kinda "meh-ish". (The visual side of things is more impressive. I don't exactly know what the director was going for with /smoking prior to Second Song, but I like it.) To be honest, I'm not sure where this leaves me with the band now. I thought Wolf Like Me was one of the best songs I'd heard in years when it first came out and nothing's changed my mind significantly since. I *liked* Dear Science, although the plaudits it received — multiple 2008 Album of the Year awards — were rather generous to say the least. (Fave track on the album: Family Tree.)

So we  appear to be on a slight downward trend as far as this music relationship is concerned. I also know that TVotR aren't to everyone's taste as it is. Still, give these covers a listen and see if they move you...

First up, The Subways remind us that they're so much more than a simple be-my-be-my-rock-n-rock-queen chorus line, with a perfectly melodic version of "Staring at the Sun":


[Note to video uploader: Good spellint, pal!]

Second, here's TVotR themselves taking down the Pixie's Mr Grieves (off the classic Doolittle) in pretty impressive, completely original a cappella fashion.