Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 06/14/2011 at 3:52 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: country, covers, rolling in the deep

“Rolling in the Deep” just keeps barreling through the pop achievements. The song almost single-handedly catapulted Adele atop the Duffy/Winehouse retro-soul pile she’d occupied before, gave her a nice No. 1 perch on the Billboard charts, dethroned Alicia Keys as the singing-competition go-to and got its requisite Glee cover. And now it’s crossed platforms as well as oceans, courtesy of country band Little Big Town and their “Scattered, Smothered & Covered” series. Watch below:

Adele’s the latest in a series that we’re a little surprised has eluded our watch until now (although we did catch their Sugarland collaboration on “Like a Prayer”). It spans the full spectrum of country creativity, from the totally conventional (fellow country band Alabama, a tribute to those hit by this year’s tornadoes) to the fairly conventional (The Script’s “For the First Time“–folk-rock’s just a hyphenate away from country-rock), on to the should-be-surprising but-really-isn’t (Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” which already had an in-Haus country cover) to the genuinely new (a well-harmonized, much-twanged “Grenade” cover). And there you have it: your afternoon hours, now full.