If there is a better version of Lennon's Imagine out there, its on this record.
Its a big call and I don't really mean it but I feel it is almost justified.
Emotive (stylised as eMOTIVe) is an album of covers by alternative rock band A Perfect Circle, maybe or maybe not coincidentally released at the time of the US presidential election of 2004.
It's not uncommon for established artists to cover songs, blues players do blues standards all the time, and although rock doesn't really share the same attitude artists like Neil Young get away with throwing a few covers in with their own stuff. However, Emotive is a cover album with every intention of being an album of covers, and it is exceptional because the covers are drastic changes to the originals.
There are some big songs in there, Imagine for one, and What's Going On (Marvin Gaye), Fiddle and the Drum (Joni Mitchell), as well as stuff like People are People by Depeche Mode. A Perfect Circle went up in my estimations with this release, because it is one thing to write your own songs from a blank slate, and it is a whole kind of challenge in itself, but they show the depth and breadth of their musicianship and writing skills by changing these famous songs so radically and still making them work. They're almost new songs in way. Imagine gets a whole lot darker, and if it hadn't been written until 2004 maybe it would have been written like Circle do in the first instance. I feel it is most likely not a coincidence that the release coincided with the election; all the songs have a conspicuously political feel (Let's Have A War was not a subtle choice), and the way the songs have been put together and inflected with twenty-first century political cynicism makes this an intelligent, captivating and definitely emotionally and intellectually emotive piece of art.
