Historically, a "4AD covers album" has meant a "This Mortal Coil album." When label founder Ivo Watts-Russell wanted to inhabit the world of the music that was most formative for him, he (perhaps thankfully) did not strap on a guitar and pull up to a mic; instead, he enlisted the artists signed to his label to come together in various permutations to record these songs—which he’d then produce and reconstruct in the studio—resulting in three highly atmospheric and dramatic albums that introduced a generation of indie music fans to the likes of Tim Buckley, Big Star, Spirit, and more.

In 2021, Watts-Russell is long gone from the label he started, and while 4AD is still, four decades later, nominally working in the same indie-but-also-something-else lane, it has far less of the sense of familial cohesion that it did in its '80s and '90s heyday. While there have been other covers compilations on the label in recent years (most notably Dark Was the Night and Day of the Dead.