Sweetness Power

Recording a cover of any reasonably well-known song is always a balancing act. How do you make something new enough for it to be worth the effort without shattering the appeal of the original? A cover, as opposed to an interpretation of a traditional song, carries with it an implicit debt to someone else’s creativity, and a corresponding duty to honour that creativity. It’s tough to get right – the deluge of frankly appalling tribute acts that have flooded the live music scene in recent years is proof enough of that – but on the rare occasions it does work, it can seem like a kind of alchemy.

Recording a cover of any reasonably well-known song is always a balancing act. How do you make something new enough for it to be worth the effort without shattering the appeal of the original? A cover, as opposed to an interpretation of a traditional song, carries with it an implicit debt to someone else’s creativity, and a corresponding duty to honour that creativity. It’s tough to get right – the deluge of frankly appalling tribute acts that have flooded the live music scene in recent years is proof enough of that – but on the rare occasions it does work, it can seem like a kind of alchemy.

She’s Got the Power! is the latest in an excellent series from Ace Records’ sister label, Big Beat, reappraising and recalibrating the sort-of-genre of power pop, and their second such release focusing exclusively on female-artists/women-led bands, following 2020’s Girls Go Power Pop.