To commemorate the release of Angel Olsen’s sixth studio album, “Big Time,” Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy shared a lo-fi acoustic cover of his title track.
Tweedy’s raw, weathered vocals fit the song affably, retaining the smoky, melancholic spirit of the original version. He shared the cover on his Substack blog, Relaxed Spaceshipwhere he wrote, “Normally I put songs behind the paywall, but this album is brand new and lovely, and I want everyone with ears to hear it.”
Listen to the cover here and see Olsen’s response below:
I f!!! Covering “Big Time”! ❤️❤️❤️❤️ I owe you one @JeffTweedy https://t.co/5t9yG0QI5j
— Angel Olsen (@AngelOlsen) June 4, 2022
It’s not the first time Tweedy has put his own spin on one of Olsen’s tracks – almost exactly a year ago he and his son Spencer covered his joint single with Sharon Van Etten, “Like I Used To”. The singer, songwriter, author and producer has long had an affinity for covers, with some of his recent standouts being Neil Young’s “The Old Country Waltz”, the Ted Lasso theme song and “Kokomo, IN” by Japanese Breakfast.
“Big Time” was released last Friday (June 3) via Jagjaguwar. In addition to the title track – which Olsen released as a second single in April – the album contains “All The Good Times” and “Through The Fires”. It’s the sequel to 2020’s “Whole New Mess,” which featured reworkings of tracks from Olsen’s 2019 LP, “All Mirrors.”
NME gave the new album a four-star review, with Patrick Clarke calling it “a record of enormous emotional range” and feeling that “[Olsen’s] The Midwestern croon is so perfectly suited to this kind of music that it’s a wonder she’s ever sung any other way.”
Wilco, on the other hand, released their 12th album, “Cruel Country,” last month through their own imprint dBpm Records. Clarke also gave this record a four-star review, writing that he sees Wilco “leaning wholeheartedly into country music, albeit on his own terms”, but while “tried country music tropes are subtly employed” , the group “clearly [take] be careful to avoid pastiche”.