Lake Street Dive – Fun Machine: The Sequel

by cjvinyl · Published February 13, 2025 · Updated February 13, 2025

Back in 2012, Lake Street Dive put out an EP of cover songs called “Fun Machine.” Ten years later, they went somewhat longer and made a full album of cover songs, which I bought at the very beginning of 2023.

Fun Machine: The Sequel front cover. At bottom left is a pair of boomboxes, a smaller one on top of a larger one, with a Victrola-style horn rising from the upper one. A blob of color is emitted from the horn, and similar oddly shaped blobs of color are spread across the album cover. Amongst the blobs are cut-out photos of the members of the band in nearly full-body poses, looking like they've been cut from magazines. Along with them are some small images of a pocketwatch, a mantel clock, a rotary telephone and a slide projector (I think). The band's name, Lake Street Dive, is at upper left, and the title Fun Machine: The Sequel is at lower right, both in a rough sort of cut-paper font. — *Fun Machine: The Sequel front cover*

I picked this up largely on the strength of the three Beatles covers, which they released as videos during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 as “the Rooftop Sessions.” Filmed, in appropriate homage but also with some social distancing, on a rooftop, I found all of them quite nice and quite what I needed to hear at the time. The other songs – well, “Linger” by the Cranberries is epic, of course, and they do it nicely, giving it their own twists. The remaining five, though, are songs I don’t care about, which disinclines me to put this on very often. Rachael Price’s voice is particularly suited to “So Far Away” – that’s a lovely cover of a favorite song, but if I want to hear it, I’m going over to “Tapestry.” The other songs are purely meh to me. Not a judgment, just no connection. So, this one mostly stays on the shelf.