The Rhymes And Reasons Behind Re-Recording Your Own Classics
One Direction were always known for their insightful covers and interpolations, whether it's the Blondie-Undertones mashup "One Way Or Another (Teenage Kicks)" or snippets of pop songs they'd sprinkle into live shows. Throughout their 2013 tour, a setlist staple was their version of the band Wheatus' 2000 hit single "Teenage Dirtbag," a heartfelt song about two teenage misfits finding love.
In addition to delighting One Direction fans, the boy band's cover gave Wheatus a boost (although "Teenage Dirtbag" became a global hit upon release, it was only a modest alternative radio hit in the U.S.). In fact, the song started gaining more stateside traction in recent years thanks again to SZA and Ruston Kelly covers and Wheatus ramping up touring. At some point, however, Wheatus' founder, vocalist and songwriter Brendan Brown realized he no longer had a copy of the multi-track masters of the band's 2000 self-titled debut album. Brown remembered that during the Y2K era, he had given four separate copies of these masters to his label at the time, Sony – however, Wheatus had been recorded using now-obsolete machines and an obscure tape format. If the label didn't archive or transfer these masters at some point, they may not be recoverable.
"The tapes that the multi-tracks existed on were this transitional format," Brown says. "And they were not long for this world. I mean, nobody maintains those machines now." Panicked, he went to a studio with the version of the multi-tracks he had — an incomplete, penultimate set missing his vocals — and spent two weeks "dumping them into Pro Tools, one at a
