SWL #7: Detective Agency, "Just Like Heaven (The Cure Cover)"

I’ve been in love with English post-punk/goth godfathers The Cure since high school and I’m extremely leery of covers of their material. To be fair, they can be well done, like Dinosaur Jr.’s take on “Just Like Heaven”, but 311’s dub jam version of “Lovesong” still makes me ill. So, when I clicked on Detective Agency's cover of “Just Like Heaven” I was more than a little apprehensive about what the Seattle garage-pop group had done to one of my all-time favorite songs. The track is a low-key and playful acoustic duet, and although they take few liberties with the original melody, these changes (especially the male/female contrast) turn the song into an unaffected sing-a-long—recapturing, but not impersonating the feeling of the original. I approve. You can see Detective Agency at Columbia City Theater on the 25th of April.