Trentemøller covers ‘Transformer Man’ by Neil Young
Trentemøller has crafted a special cover of a Neil Young song as part of his upcoming “Harbour Boat Trips Vol. 2: Copenhagen” compilation due this Fall. “Transformer Man” is most notorious for being part of the 1982 album “Trans” that got Neil Young sued by his label for not sounding enough like himself, or in legal speak, being ‘musically uncharacteristic of Young’s previous recordings’.
When Trentemøller collaborator Marie Fisker suggested covering the song, it took him a while to get on board: “Although I’m a huge Neil Young fan, I actually didn’t know about this song until Marie Fisker played it to me when we sat down and thought about some songs that would be fun to cover for the new Harbour Boat Trip Mix that I was working on. I wasn’t a fan of the song and its sound in the first place, but the melody, especially the hook line, somehow caught me. The song is quite far away from what I normally would listen to and so it wasn’t an obvious choice. Instead I took it as a challenge to see in which direction we could take the song. I thought it could be interesting to get rid of all that disco/vocoder stuff and focus on the song itself and suddenly it shined in new splendor. Marie interprets the song in such a personal way that it feels like, for us at least, it’s nearly a brand new tune. That’s what she’s really good at. I also felt it fits perfectly into the whole mix.”
The single “Transformer Man” will be out on the 26th of October. Below is the original by Neil Young.
Support Side-Line
More people read Side-Line than ever, and there is still no paywall and no advertising. Readers pay for it instead - from $5 a month.
Why we ask
Advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations we have not put up a paywall, and we refuse to add annoying advertising, so we need to ask for your help. Side-Line’s independent journalism takes time, money and hard work to produce, and we do it to push the artists we like, who are equally fighting to survive.
Handled by PayPal.
Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
