David Berman Celebrated with Massive Tribute Album

Dean Wareham, Adam Green, Jad Fair and more contributed to 'Approaching Perfection: A Tribute to DC Berman'

BY Allie GregoryPublished Oct 8, 2019

A new David Berman tribute album has just been released digitally via Section 26. The massive 36-track tribute record is called Approaching Perfection: A Tribute to DC Berman, and you can stream it in its entirety below.

Dean Wareham, Adam Green, Jad Fair, Jeffrey Lewis, Kyle Forester, Pete Astor, Robert Scott (of the Bats/the Clean) and many more artists have contributed covers to the album, takling songs like Silvers Jews' "Random Rules" and "People," as well as Purple Mountains' "All My Happiness Is Gone" and "Snow Is Falling in Manhattan."

Xavier Mazure from Section 26 offered a statement on the tribute:

We know it too well: the appreciation of music is always subjective… And so is its reinterpretation. Just like a composite picture, these covers as a whole have profoundly changed the way we will now listen to David Berman's songs. The performers have shown us other aspects of the musician, their own aspects, which we hadn't even thought about. Behind each song, we can hear the voice of the artist covering it. But also, implicitly, that of the poet, reaching us differently.

This compilation is only the latest in a wave of tributes since Berman's untimely death earlier this year. Artists like Kevin Morby, Woods, Anna St. Louis and First Aid Kit have all recorded covers of the late artist. Meanwhile, Toronto hosted a tribute show for Berman the night he was meant to perform in the city. 

David Berman was found dead on August 7. He was 52 years old. Read Drag City's official eulogy here

Stream Approaching Perfection: A Tribute to DC Berman below.

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