Kevin Bronson on November 8th, 2013

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What makes a song a hit? This I wonder as I listen to Tommy Keene’s “Excitement at Your Feet,” which could have been titled “If I Hear One More Cover of ”˜Paint It Black,’ I’m Going to Shoot Myself.” “Excitement” is indeed a covers album, released in September two years after Keene’s ninth full-length “Behind the Parade” and three years after his retrospective, a jaw-dropping 41-song collection covering Keene’s quarter-century as one of the finest (though sometimes overlooked) purveyors of power-pop. Over his career, Keene’s crunchy/ringing/jangling guitar work has found allies in Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, producer T-Bone Burnett, Jeff Tweedy and the late Jay Bennett of Wilco (on his brilliant ’98 effort for Matador, “Isolation Party”) and Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard, just to name-check a few. But back to the covers: On “Excitement,” the 55-year-old guitarist steers clear, for the most part, of taking on the pop nuggets you’ve heard a million times. So you have the Who’s “Much Too Much”** (1965);” you have Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The Puppet” (a 1980 7-inch); you get Television’s “Guiding Light” (177) and Donovan’s “Catch the Wind,” each of which is only a little more well-known; and the Rolling Stones’ “Ride On, Baby,” unearthed from 1967. In Keene’s hands, these 11 songs sound crisp and fresh and, if you’re weary from hearing very young bands doing their level best to honor rock’s legacy artists, expertly handled. Keene, who now lives in L.A., plays this weekend; would-be guitar gods should bear witness.

||| Stream: “Much Too Fun” and “Choking Tara”

||| Live: Tommy Keene performs Saturday night at El Cid.

** The original post listed Keene’s version of the Who song as “Much Too Fun” because that’s how it was labeled on digital advances (and still on the artist’s Soundcloud). Yes, the Who song was “Much Too Much.”