The Knocks and Foster The People cover The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’

The Knocks and Foster The People have shared a new covers EP of huge ’90s hits including The Verve‘s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’.

The ‘Melody & Silence’ EP also sees the bands take on tracks by Beck, and Moby and Gwen Stefani – listen to it below.

Production duo The Knocks and Foster The People’s Mark Foster have shared a number of tracks together in recent years, with the most recent track ‘All About You’ coming out in January.

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Alongside ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, the EP features versions of Beck’s ‘Devils Haircut’ from 1996 and Gwen Stefani and Moby’s duet on ‘South Side’ from 1999.

Listen to all three cover versions below.

Back in 2019, The Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft won back the rights to ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ from The Rolling Stones after a long legal battle.

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The Stones won the publishing rights to The Verve’s hit song in 1997, when the Stones’ former manager Allen Klein – who controls all Stones material from 1963 to 1971 – sued the Britrock band over their sample of an orchestral recording by Andrew Loog Oldham. That snippet came from an orchestral version of The Stones’ 1965 song ‘The Last Time’, which Oldham recorded for the album ‘The Rolling Stones Songbook’.






Elsewhere, Foster The People have said they’re “seriously thinking of retiring” their biggest hit ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ due to its controversial lyrics, which have been accused of glamorising gun violence.

The modern indie classic, which was released in 2010, is about a young school student called Robert who imagines shooting his classmates.

In a 2019 interview with Billboard, frontman Mark Foster has now explained that ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ could be cut from the group’s future live shows.

“The thing that made that song special was the public,” he said, “and the fact that people thought it was special, and it resonated and it created a conversation. And I’m proud of the conversation that it created. But now I’ve been very seriously thinking of retiring the song forever.”