The Memories & Colleen Green – “The Sign” (Ace Of Base Cover)
Swedish pop group Ace Of Base’s #1 smash “The Sign” was everywhere in 1994. It will always remind me of summer days at the now-defunct Columbus waterpark Wyandotte Lake. It also reminds me of Zoombezi Bay, the revamped Wyandotte Lake now open at the same site, which was playing hella ’90s music last time I took my kids. I wonder what rating my colleague Tom Breihan will give it when The Number Ones rolls into 1994. I also wonder what the sign is, and how someone with closed eyes could have seen it. But I digress.
Portland-born, LA-based lo-fi band the Memories have covered “The Sign” for their new album Pickles & Pies. They’ve done so in the style of ’90s dub music, with lead vocals by the great Colleen Green, who’s been known to cover the song at her shows. The result is quite different from Ace Of Base’s gleaming original, nor does it resemble Pickles & Pies’ prior single “Second Try,” an easygoing Laurel Canyon soft-rocker with notes of power-pop.
Both the cover are the original are worth hearing, which you can do below.
Pickles & Pies is out 5/29 on Gnar Tapes/Axis Mundi. Pre-order it here.