Paper Bag Records cover Bowie's Ziggy Stardust

To celebrate ten years, Toronto record label Paper Bag Records (or PBR, for those of the hip variety) got a bunch of their artists together to record a tribute album to Bowie's classic Ziggy Stardust.

I know what you're thinking, that my first instinct would be to hate it, and you wouldn't be wrong. Turns out it's not that bad.

It's a free download so if that's something that would pique your interest then it's definitely worth checking out. I wouldn't exactly give any of the cuts five stars, but the whole thing is surprisingly good.

Ziggy is one of my favourite albums of all-time so I really had my guard up when I first listened, but the first few tracks drew me in. It loses me somewhere in the middle, and it's tough for me to tell if that's just my pro-Bowie bias at work or what.

The Yamantaka-Sonic Titan cover of the Ziggy bonus track "John I'm Only Dancing" is a nice touch too.

It's interesting to note that The Darcys did a full-LP cover of Steely Dan's Aja earlier this year. I look at this, and other recent full-LP covers by the likes of Flaming Lips as a possible trend towards rock's canonizing of its catalog the same way that jazz and classical have genre standards that are performed and reinterpreted time and again. The maturation of a musical genre, I suppose.

Anyway, all the PBR record will cost you is your email address, so go check it out.