It’s not terribly surprising to me that there haven’t been too many covers of songs by The Sugarcubes. The Icelandic answer to The B-52s, with a pre-solo Björk playing Kate Pierson/Cindy Wilson to Einar Örn’s Fred Schneider, the idiosyncratic nature of The Sugarcubes’ songs don’t lend themselves to easy reinterpretation.

The trick seems to be to ignore or subtract Örn’s contributions, an understandably wise move. Annie Lennox recorded the Björk-only “Mama” for the 1995 all-woman benefit album, Ain’t Nothing But A She Thing (later included on The Avengers soundtrack). In 2010, Diana Vickers covered “Hit,” from The Sugarcubes’ 1992 swan song, Stick Around For Joy, for her post-X Factor debut, Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree (an album that remains unreleased in the U.S.).

Now Alison Valentine has put forth her cover of The Sugarcubes’ “Birthday,” which like “Mama,” appears on The Sugarcubes’ 1988 debut, Life’s Too Good. With her breezy vocal style, the rising New York talent can’t help but make this “Birthday” an altogether sweeter affair, even if 25 years later, I still can’t make any sense of the narrative.

After watching The Sugarcubes perform “Birthday” and “Motorcrash” on Saturday Night Live (see below), my mom forbade me to buy their music. Björk’s vocals reminded me of Sinead O’Connor, whose The Lion And The Cobra I had on repeat, and I wasn’t about to be dissuaded. It couldn’t have been much of a threat anyway, as I had my dad order Life’s Too Good through his Columbia House mail-order membership, and the cassette was in my hands pretty quickly without repercussions.

Free download of Alison Valentine – “Birthday” (The Sugarcubes cover) via the SoundCloud player above.