Oliver!: Th' Faith Healers - SOS [Peel Session] (20 March 1992)

This show featured a repeat of a Faith Healers session which had originally been broadcast on 11/1/92.  I only caught two of the tracks on this show: the rama-lama repetition of Hippy Hole and this rather enjoyable cover of ABBA's SOS, which gives the 1975 original a shoegaze makeover with feedback to spare.  It comes through as one of the more sincere efforts at "underground" covers of pop - see also things like the If I Were a Carpenter tribute album from 1994, which Peel despite his dislike for The Carpenters played tracks from.  Or you could compare it to Chumbawamba's (in)famous Peel Session comprised solely of covers of cheesy party songs in late 1993.

Peel was tickled by Th' Faith Healers choice of cover saying how much he enjoyed it when bands used the session as an opportunity to record something other than the latest single and three tracks from the forthcoming album.  I might have a higher opinion of Th' Faith Healers if they had chosen to go full Erasure in this session.  Considering that this session predates ABBA-esque by a couple of months, you could, at a push claim that Th' Faith Healers made the early running in a year which would see Erasure take an EP of ABBA covers to Number 1 in the charts and end with the release of Gold: Greatest Hits, one of the biggest selling compilation albums of all time.  It's clear, 1992 wasn't about Ebeneezer Goode, it was about Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid.

Inspired by Th' Faith Healers?



Videos courtesy of Vibracobra23Redux and ErasureVEVO.