![]() Perhaps even more than those of Bob Dylan (no stranger to covering the Dead), the songs of Jerry Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter welcome musicians of all stripes-loud and quiet, singers and instrumentalists, big-eared non-virtuosos and players alike. Already containing universes, the Dead’s songbook is what makes the set enjoyable as a whole, transcending the performers and their translations. ![]() In the same way that no single Grateful Dead show (or song performance, or even era) could ever be definitive, the 59 tracks of Day of the Dead represent (merely!) a major entry in the ever-deepening catalog of Grateful Dead covers, interpretations, and reinventions. With a cast of dozens drawn from a cross-section of indie-ish musical worlds, the set, like its MTV predecessor, signals another milestone in the San Francisco band’s profound influence on American music, closing old circles and opening new ones. This year’s Day of the Dead is a new 5xCD, five-and-a-half-hour compilation produced by the National’s Bryce and Aaron Dessner as a benefit for the Red Hot organization. They were easy picking for punks and the DEA alike. The Grateful Dead boogied, perhaps occasionally achieved choogle some of their fans were definitely on serious drugs, egregiously friendly, and stood out in crowds. That attitude, too, went mainstream a decade or so later, via Kurt Cobain’s homemade “ Kill the Grateful Dead” shirt. Being anti-Dead had been part of the uniform for years (see the Teen Idles’ “Deadhead,” from Dischord’s very first 7” in 1980). ![]() It was this popularity, too, that codified the deep uncoolness of the Grateful Dead during the same years, at least among a certain taste-making elite.
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