You’ll probably know Ivy in one of two ways: as the other band Adam Schlesinger plays in (the first being Fountains Of Wayne), or as the band who did that song in There’s Something About Mary. Their slick brand of euroclass pop is hard to resist, even if it doesn’t leave much of an impact afterwards.

Guestroom was a covers album the band put out in 2002, ostensibly to let everyone know that they were still alive after a botched album release in North America (Long Distance was out in Japan for quite a while before it came out on Ivy’s home turf). “Digging Your Scene,” originally performed by 80s band the Blow Monkeys, is one of many highlights.

I actually downloaded the original after hearing the Ivy version, just to see how it stacked up. Maybe you had to be a child of the 80s to understand; the beat was leaden, the group of singers on the chorus was overdone, and all in all it didn’t have a patch on Ivy’s rendition. And all it took was a new backbeat, a slight change in key, and Dominique Durand’s great voice. It’s fast and nimble in all the places where the original drags.