♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Ezra Furman (30) Little Simz (13) Perfume Genius (12) Joni Mitchell (7) Portishead (6). #myweekcounted 273 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

Good grief Spotify, how about a few less self-congratulatory adverts and just doing your one job

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Little Simz (26) Ezra Furman (19) Perfume Genius (12) FKA twigs (9) PJ Harvey (7). #myweekcounted 303 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Little Simz (39) Ezra Furman (26) Joan as Police Woman (11) English Teacher (9) The Beatles (9). #myweekcounted 353 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

Loving this Ezra Furman single..... Does anyone have recommendations for her other work? www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjaI...

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: David Bowie (23) Little Simz (16) Moby (14) FKA twigs (12) Perfume Genius (7). #myweekcounted 400 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

More CD bargains from eBay, £1 each. You keep selling them folks, I'll keep buying them 👍

Sufjan Stevens - Chicago youtu.be/tWX3El-slpY?...

This album is like the missing link between Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire. (It's a great album and on first listen "Chicago" is the best song on it)

Seriously, if people are selling CDs on Ebay for £1 each, I'm buying them....

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Perfume Genius (20) Everything Is Recorded (18) Kae Tempest (14) The Beatles (13) The Kinks (12). #myweekcounted 294 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

I really enjoyed creating that A2Z of cover versions and I'm thinking about doing a new one. Maybe an A2Z of songs that are about places: eg The Clash "London Calling" or Tupac "California Love" or Kirsty MacColl "Walking Down Madison". Thoughts/comments gratefully received!

Actually I won’t finish with ZZ Top. Here instead are the Dead Kennedys with, I think, the best version of “Viva Las Vegas”. Enjoy!

#A2Zcovers - Z I’d like to finish our A2Z of cover versions with ZZ Top. I love that they don’t take themselves too seriously and this video for their version of “Viva Las Vegas” is suitably over the top --

#A2Zcovers - Z A second shout out to Ziggy Marley for this reggae version of Louis Armstrong’s classic “What A Wonderful World”. Make sure you turn up the bass for this, it’s worth it.

#A2Zcovers - Z You would probably have guessed that Ziggy Marley has done quite a few covers of his dad’s songs. They’re all good but this version of “Get Up, Stand Up” is top notch--

Well it's a classic, isn't it? youtu.be/KOjP1d8WzIg?...

#A2Zcovers - Z And here’s another actor/singer - Zendaya. No, I didn’t know she could sing, either. This is a decent cover of John Legend’s lovely “All Of Me”. On balance, it's worth four minutes of your time.

#A2Zcovers - Z Did you know actress Zooey Deschanel had a singing career too? No, me neither. This is her cover of Lionel Ritchie’s mega-hit “Hello” from the soundtrack of the movie ‘Trolls’. It's ok, if you like that sort of thing.

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Little Simz (21) PinkPantheress (11) Groove Armada (7) Wet Leg (7) Boards of Canada (5). #myweekcounted 266 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

#A2Zcovers - Z This is Swedish pop princess with an update on the Abba hit “Lay All Your Love On Me”. It’s a live version and you have to credit her vocal performance on this, it’s impeccable:

#A2Zcovers - Z This is US singer-songwriter Zola Jesus with a Nine Inch Nails-esque cover of the 60s classic “Somebody To Love”. It’s nothing like the original. I mean, it’s pretty much unrecognisable to be honest, and there’s some quite disturbing noises in there too.

#A2Zcovers - Z Here’s Zager & Evans’ 1969 classic “In The Year 2525” being, er, re-worked by early electropop band Visage in 1983. It’s heavy on 80s electronic drum machine, vocoder and synths (which were probably horrifically expensive back then). Six out of ten, not bad-

If you'd like a free download of my 25-minute ambient EP to soundtrack a quiet period in your day, you can get it here.... (just enter a zero in payment box)

#A2Zcovers - Z It’s not easy to cover a song like “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”, written by Goffin & King, made famous by The Shirelles. The Zombies could do it though, with ease….

#A2Zcovers - Y We really need a second cover version by The Yardbirds and what better than this 1964 cover of The Isley Brothers’ “Respectable”. (This song is quite similar to the Isleys’ later song “Shout”, which was a hit for Lulu in both 1965 and 1986)

#A2Zcovers - Y The Yardbirds. Well any band with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck in (although not all at the same time) is worth our attention, right? So here are The Yardbirds with a great cover of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom”....

#A2Zcovers - Y This is English post-punk band Yard Act with a version of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" that sounds like an out-take from something The Fall might have done....

#A2Zcovers - Y WTF-please-stop-right-now cover version of the day. This is early-2000s pop star Will Young with a totally unnecessary, slowed-down-to-a-dirge cover of the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen In Love” . I think you can tell I’m not a fan.

#A2Zcovers - Y This is Senegalese musician and all-round legend Youssou N'Dour with a very cool re-working of Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" youtu.be/w7TfXqLjzdA

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: Perfume Genius (18) Everything Is Recorded (15) The Shangri‐Las (9) The Orb (7) The xx (7). #myweekcounted 235 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

If you would like a free copy of my latest album, it's available now from the link below. You don’t have to pay for it. Just enter a zero in the amount box. Thanks, and if you do download it, I hope you enjoy it!

#A2Zcovers - Y Here are influential Japanese electro/pop band, the Yellow Magic Orchestra with a weird version of Archie Bell & The Drells soul classic, “Tighten Up” . It’s kinda like the original version, but overlaid with a layer of silliness. Strange but entertaining.

And on the subject of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, here's Macy Gray's weird version of the YYYs beautiful song “Maps”. Personally I'm not a fan of this version but see what you think of it -

#A2Zcovers - Y Here are The Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering The Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker". What a good combination!

#A2Zcovers - Y Another good cover version by Neil Young is this gentle, acoustic version of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” (which was actually written by Willie Nelson) . No guitar solos in this one, I promise.

#A2Zcovers - Y Rather like yesterday’s entry from prog rockers Yes, today’s artist Neil Young is also partial to a long, rambling guitar solo. He does good cover versions though, like this rocking version of Bob Dylan’s classic “All Along The Watchtower”

#A2Zcovers - Y Here's prog rockers Yes doing "America" by Paul Simon. This is a live version and it’s excessively long to be honest, in true prog rock fashion, with at least a million solos by everyone in the band- www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KbM...

Our final “X” this week is Brit music producer, Richard X. It's not strictly a cover version, but here's his fantastic "We Don't Give a Damn About Our Friends", which combines Adina Howard's "Freak Like Me", Tubeway Army's "Are 'Friends' Electric” and The Sugababes.

#A2Zcovers - X This is English thrash metal band Xentrix (from Preston, of all places) with a rather-less-thrashy-than-I-was-hoping version of the Ghostbusters theme tune by Ray Parker Jr. It works quite well though -

#A2Zcovers - X I can’t find any cover versions by X-Ray Spex, one of my favourite punk bands. However, I can give you this rather bizarre cover of their famous single “Oh Bondage, Up Yours” by, er, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Yes, really, WTF . That's all I can say.

♫ Top 5 artists of the Last.week: The xx (11) English Teacher (10) Buzzcocks (5) Metronomy (5) Perfume Genius (5). #myweekcounted 195 Scrobbles with Lastfm #music via @lastfm.blue

Just for comparison, here’s the original Womack & Womack version of “Teardrops”, which was a hit in 1988. This video even looks like it was filmed in 1980s-o-vision!

#A2Zcovers - X Here are lowkey indie band The xx, with their version of the Womack & Womack song "Teardrops." It’s surprisingly upbeat for The xx as well. I mean, for anyone else, this would be really slooow, but for them, well….

#A2Zcovers - X Our second cover by LA punk band X is this surprisingly faithful version of The Small Faces’ much-covered “All Or Nothing”. It’s Ok, a decent cover, but nothing special (like three out of five, could do better) -

#A2Zcovers - X It’s Punk Day again here in the Land of Cover Versions. Here's influential punk band X from Los Angeles with their thrashy 1980 version of “Soul Kitchen”, yes that song by famous earlier LA band The Doors (this recording was produced by The Doors' Ray Manzarek)

#A2Zcovers - X Well this is a random cover version I never expected to find. Here are early German goth band Xmal Deutschland with a strangely downtempo version of Billy Bragg’s “The Girl In The Iron Mask”. It kinda reminds me of a 1980s Evanescence (sorry Evanescence fans)

One extra cover of an XTC song: this is French low-key pop band Nouvelle Vague with a, well, low key, version of the XTC hit “Making Plans for Nigel." Nice and chilled, even if it’s slightly twee - youtu.be/aH3x1PSYcm8?...

And talking of XTC, here’s an unusual cover version. This is American pop star Mandy Moore with a really good, well-arranged, pop version of the XTC hit "Senses Working Overtime”. Great vocals and harmonies on this too, they make it special.

#A2Zcovers - W Let’s start the letter X with English pop punk band XTC, early on in their career, with their quirky take on Bob Dylan’s famous “All Along The Watchtower”. (It brings to mind Devo’s version of the Stones’ “Satisfaction” - angular,novel, different.)