Want U Back

Not very often you hear the cover before the Original. I guess in this digital/viral age you could see it happen more often.
That's the case here with "I want u back". Originally recorded by British X-factor contestant Cher Lloyd. I guess she's pretty big in the UK? I've actually heard a couple songs now of hers that were recorded. Both covering artist did better than she did on the song. Too early to form an opinion?
She's very produced, has a very thick accent, almost 'May Fair Lady's Elisa' before being fixed by whats his face with the slippers and chocolates.
Anyways, I stumbled (by stumbled meaning I subscribe)on this lovely version of Want U Back by YouTube cover Artists "Boyce Avenue" featuring Hannah Trigwell. Boyce is alot like Tyler Ward, take popular songs and most of the time re-arrange the pop song into a ballad. Boyce and Tyler have even teamed up on a few songs, I think they've toured together also.
I've been loving this song for about a week now, thought I should finally hear the original. So there it was, watched the video, heard the song. Very poppy, very almost rapped kind of pop song. Wasn't impressed. Sure it can be catchy, but mostly because I've heard this fantastic cover and am hearing a little bit of it in my head.
The lyrics fit so much better as a ballad and a duet. This is why I love the 'cover'. you can take a crappy song, re-arrange it and make it great.
Here is Boyce Avenue's version:



And Cher Lloyd's version:



OK after listening to Cher's version a couple times I like it now, crap.

If by chance you want to check out Boyce Avenue's youtube channel, you'll be sorry not to look up his cover of Journey's classic 'Faithfully'. Its good, GOOOOOD.

Falling

Found this gem, can't stop listening to it. Band called Field Mouse covering Falling by Julee Cruise, from the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Psycho Ward

If you don't know who Tyler Ward is, you might want to look him up. I found him a couple years ago in my search for covers. He is a big YouTube cover artist. He does write some original stuff too, mostly mainly known for his covers. He does duets alot, actually more often then not. But I like most of his interpretations of mainstream music. The playlist below I added some of his better stuff. The Eminem cover of 'No Love' is crazy good. His mom and brother help him out on it. You take a curse laced rap and bring it down to a cleaner more mellow rap/ballad, sweet. Again taking an upbeat song like Fun's 'Some Nights' and bringing it down with a duet. Then taking Adele's huge hit 'Someone Like You' which was already a mellow song, dropping it slower and adding a great vocalist to make it a duet. The other songs are just him, Kenny Chesney's country song 'Somewhere with you' and the Fray's 'Never say Never'. Even did a better version covering Demi Lavato's 'Skyscraper'. I subscribe to his youtube channel. Sometimes the covers are 'bleh', but sometimes you get really good gems. *No the picture is not of him. Tyler is a clean cut young man.

It's Over

So in response to Brandi Carlile's new album release 'Bear Creek' I thought I'd post her doing a cover. She has done a ton of covers, why I haven't posted one yet is beyond me. Maybe since it would be hard to choose? Brandi Carlile is one of my all-time favorite singers, if not my favorite, close 2nd behind Amy Lee of Evanescence. Anyway, as I was previewing songs from her new album on youtube I stumbled across a cover she did I hadn't seen before. I like Roy Orbison. He has a ton of songs I love. This one, 'It's Over' is no exception. Brandi does a great job (of course). Her voice and her style of singing is very comparable to Roy. They both go into that upper register and have many songs that incorporate it into their songs. With 'Its over' if you didn't know any better, it could very well be one of Brandi Carlile's original songs. Brandi Carlile doing Roy Orbison's It's Over:

You gotta Fight...

So one of the Co- Founders (Adam Yauch)of the Beastie Boys passed away a little bit ago. I liked and owned the "License to ill" cassette. I think only the 2nd song in history to mix rock & rap (Walk this way Aerosmith/Run DMC). Fight for your right to party was like an anthem to kids of that generation. I remember it, but back then I didn't really know what an anthem was. Anyway, great song, great bunch of white dude rappers, and great cover here by Coldplay. There was some tribute concert to the Beastie Boys recently because of Adam's death, and Cold Play did a totally Coldplay version of Fight for your right.

No Ordinary Love

So I was going through Spotify the other night, looking for song to put me to sleep. Started listening to some John Barry (movie soundtrack composer for Dances with wolves, somewhere in time, out of africa..ect). My favorite of his has been for the movie Indecent Proposal. So I was listening to it on repeat and remembered having the soundtrack as a teenager.
I didn't get the soundtrack for John Barry though. I got it for the other songs on it. It was a cassette, half was contemporary songs, the other side was John Barry 's instrumental suite. I remember seeing a music video (back when MTV played videos) and loved the song that was in the video for the movie. I didn't know the name of the song but figured it would be on the soundtrack, it wasn't :(
Still a good album though. After seeing the movie and staying through the credits to see the song it was Sade's "No Ordinary Love". See back in those days you pretty much had to buy a whole album to get a song, not like today where you can just download the one you want. So I did, still a good album though.
Anyways, which brings us to the cover. The duo group The civil Wars have been gaining popularity, and righfully so. They mesh very well together. They have a cover of Michael Jackson's Billy Jean thats way good too.
But I came across their cover of Sade's No Ordinary Love. The original is still way better in my opinion, but its cool to get a different take. Where Sade had a sensual R&B feel to it, Civil Wars brings it to acoustic harmonies.
Not going to make my own video, just reposting the video I saw on youtube.

Hip Hoppera

So I went to the vault for this one! I was listening to another cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, a softer more "meh" version. Then remembered back in the 90's I picked up a CD single of this version. It came from the movie 'High School High'.
The Braids gave this song what in my opinion was needed all along. Most of us know this song from the movie 'Wayne's World' where they jammed in the car. If you listen to the lyrics its pretty sad. Queen was once quoted as calling Bohemian Rhapsody an 'urban rock opera'. What they Braids did was turned it into a 'Hip Hoppera'. You got your 'urban/ghetto' lyrics with hip hop music. Thus completely changing the song. Queen has the Rock opera feel to it sung by a male rock band.
The Braids are a female hip hop duo. They do an amazing job! If you never heard the original you would think nothing of the comparison.

The Braids - Bohemian Rhapsody

Halo

I was hoping to at least get in a song a month, oh well, better late then never.
I think I kept putting it off because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Too many covers out there to choose from. I've been working on a couple 80's cover CDs so I thought about doing that, but which song to choose then too?
Couple days ago my son Ben had been playing with an old phone. This old phone has a music player with some songs on it, mostly to entertain the baby, she likes music already :) Anyway Ben kept playing Beyonce's song Halo over & over. I think because it has the word Halo in it. If you know my boys its all about the video game Halo at my house. Halo is a ring like structure that was used by an ancient alien race to eradicate certain life forms. The game follows future soldiers to defeat a different alien race from controlling the Halo and wiping out the humans. With me?
In Beyonce's song she of course talks about the ring around someones head, indicating righteousness, heavenly or something.
I've heard way too many youtube covers of her song. I do have one in particular I liked, which I will share. A gal by the name of Lotte Kestner did a simple version. Almost too simple, too plain. In listening to the first verse I almost turned it off thinking "boring". But I endured, and was rewarded for it.
It's just her and a slow picking guitar. Like I said the song is pretty basic until she transitions into the chorus. Here she goes into the upper register with a sweet little bravado then just a slight produced melody. From then on she has you captivated in her sweet, little, "boring" rendition and interpretation.
So with the song Halo and the video game Halo I thought I would mix the two and see what we get. Slow sweet song mixed with fast alien fighting action.