Covering the (future) classics

Famous country artist Glen Campbell has been performing since the ‘60s,  and since then has released over 50 albums, which included career hit songs such as “Rhinestone Cowboy” and “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” Campbell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Despite drug abuse and marriage problems, he has returned with a fresh collection of tunes.

On Meet Glen Campbell, he covers modern classics from the Foo Fighters, Green Day, U2 and others.  

One of the more captivating numbers on the album is the Green Day cover “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life).”  The radiance of this song is guided by Campbell’s voice. When listening to the 72-year-old voice crooning Green Day’s hit, it’s hard to not be reminded of Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails’ somber ballad “Hurt.” Where Green Day cues the violins in the original, Campbell decides to add a steady drum beat that plays throughout the piece. Another change is the rhythm guitar. Instead of the soft arpeggios in the original, the driving rhythm guitar is the “boom-chicka-boom” sound often used by Johnny Cash’s guitarist Luther Perkins, most notably on classics such as “I Walk The Line,” and “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Campbell’s rendition of the Foo Fighters’ “Times Like These” sounds like it came right out of 1975. The cover has the same type of symphonic layers that were in his hit “Rhinestone Cowboy.” He fluidly manages to make the emotive tune seem like one of his old classics. Aside from the song being Campbellesque musically, his instantly-recognizable vocal tone is similar to what it was on “Cowboy.”

On Meet Glen Campbell, the country legend is successfully able to take rock hits from the past 20 years and make them his own, barely allowing a nuance of modernity to creep in. Despite retaining his original sound, Campbell might be able to reach a new generation of fans due to his song selection. If you’ve never been fully introduced to him, this album lets you meet Glen Campbell.