This is an awfully tired genre that's gone from kitsch to cheese over the years, but listeners looking to get a feel for the flavor of bluegrass interpretations of pop music could do a lot worse than
The Fantastic Pickin' on Series Bluegrass Sampler, Vol. 2. While instrumental versions of
Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones,"
the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," and
Coldplay's "Clocks" sound like Nashville elevator music, the high lonesome harmonies that fuel Iron Horse's rendition of
Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" and
Cornbread Red's treatment of
Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" are pretty damn effective. ~ James Christopher Monger