Scarlett Johansson’s Band Covers New Order for an AIDS Benefit Album

Republic Records and Mass Appeal

LISTEN: Awesome ’80s hits get reworked for amfAR—and get nominated for a POZ Award.

October 24, 2016

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Bizarre love triangle indeed: Scarlett Johansson’s band Sugar for Sugar covered the New Order hit to raise money for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. That’s just one of 14 classics of the 1980s to get reimagined and recorded for the benefit album The Time Is Now, which is available now.


Dita Von Teese, Aloe Blacc, DNCE, Bebel Gilberto and a host of others stepped into the recording studio for the album, which is released by Republic Records and Mass Appeal.

“The 1980s was a decade of revolutionary changes in the music scene, with an explosion of new sounds and rhythms, the ascendance of MTV, and the emergence of new musical movements on both sides of the Atlantic,” said Mass Appeal’s CEO, Peter Bittenbender, in an amfAR press release.


“Music also provided the soundtrack to people’s daily lives and was a source of inspiration and solace with the advent of HIV/AIDS. This album is a tribute to that extraordinary time,” added Michaelangelo L’Acqua, one of the project’s executive producers.



Here’s the complete playlist:

• Phantogram “Take Me Home” (Phil Collins)

• Sugar for Sugar “Bizarre Love Triangle” (New Order)

• Metric “Under the Milky Way” (The Church)

• Brazilian Girls “Whip It” (Devo)

• Bebel Gilberto “Rio” (Duran Duran)

• DNCE “What’s Love Got to Do With It” (Tina Turner)

• Aloe Blacc “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson)

• Dita Von Teese & Sebastien Tellier “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” (Culture Club)

• Lower Dens “Maneater” (Hall & Oates)

• Chaos Chaos “Genius of Love” (Tom Tom Club)

• Marian Hill “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” (Whitney Houston)

• LP “Pride (In the Name of Love)” (U2)

• Yuna “Lovesong” (The Cure)

• Theophilus London “Dance Hall Days” (Wang Chung)

The album is nominated for the 2016 POZ Awards, in the category Best in Performing Arts. Other nominees include the play Affection, the dance-theater piece Carried Away, the Grateful Dead cover album Day of the Dead and rapper Mykki Blanco’s debut album Mykki. For more about the POZ Awards—and to vote on them—click here.


Below, you can listen to two tracks from The Time Is Now, plus an interview with L’Acqua about the project.


         Behind the Scenes: The Time Is Now

 Aloe Blacc ‘Billie Jean’ (Michael Jackson cover) 

               from amfAR ’The Time Is Now’

         Sugar For Sugar ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ 

  (New Order cover) from amfAR ‘The Time Is Now'

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