I wanted to post this a couple weeks ago, but with all the junk that came out recently about Ms Cyrus it wasn't a good time. Now that her 15 minutes are up we can check out a cover of "We can't stop" that knocks Cyrus' out of the park.
A few posts ago I did a compilation from Tyler Ward. He is a cover artist, pretty much does his own arrangement of every song that comes out.
With his cover of Miley Cyrus' "We can't stop" he does a little tribute/homage of sorts to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. If you don't Israel google or youtube him/his version of Wonderful World/Over the Rainbow, good stuff.
If you live under a rock and haven't heard Miley's original version, take a listen, its actual kinda catchy. But then it will sound like crap compared to Tyler's version.
Here is another "Part 2" version. Same singer, same song just re-arranged, more mellow like.
So Ellie Goulding is a new chick on the scene, pop music. I've grown away from this genre along time ago. Very rarely will I like a "pop" song now days. A few posts ago there was one.
Anyways, when I heard this song I liked it immediately. Very catchy!
When checking it out on youtube I came across this version she did for a radio station. Very close vocally to the original but without all the pop music. Just a little electric piano. Really cool song, really cool version.
I got lazy for this one, just haven't posted in awhile, this one popped out so I chose it, thats it.
If you haven't heard the original by chance here it is too.
To be honest I thought I knew all of CCR's library, apparently not. Back in the day I used to pride myself on knowing alot of bands and their music. One point it was almost my job. Lately it seems I've come across nuggets from artists I thought I knew, makes me feel like a punk when that happens.
Anyways, not really sure how I found Joe Cocker's cover version of Creedence Clear Water Revival's "Long as I can see the light." I believe I was piddling through youtube, maybe looking for something to do with "light" or light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing, searching for the light, IDK?
I like Joe Cocker, I have one of those 20th century artists greatest hits CDs I purchased back in the day. Probably for just a couple songs too. I of course have never seen Joe Cocker live in concert but have seen music videos of his, live tapings that sort of thing. You wouldn't know it by looking at him but he puts alot of energy and emotion into his music. It's evident here with "Light". At one point in the song if you listen closely you can hear him choke up kind of. Maybe thats just the way he sings or how his voice sounds when doing ballads? But I bet watching/listening to him record this record must have been an experience for those involved.
I like the line "...Guess I've got that old travelin' bone,
'cause this feelin' won't leave me alone.
But I won't, won't be losin' my way, no, no
'Long as I can see the light..."
As much as I love CCR I like JC's version of this song better.
So apparently there is this show on HBO called "Girls" that is getting rave reviews or something? I don't know, I don't have HBO. But I do know that the soundtrack has at least one good song!
I like The Rolling Stones, and honestly I thought I've heard most of their stuff, guess I was wrong. I hadn't heard "Fool to Cry" before last week. I heard the Tegan and Sara cover first also.
Seems to be a trend lately, hearing the cover before the original. I love both versions. I love Rolling Stones ballads. They never got enough if any airplay.
I chose this cover for a couple reasons, one its new and its really good. Mostly because as I was driving home from Grandma's house, just picked up Piper, this song came on in the car. Towards the very end of the song I swear I hear Piper trying to sing it. The song does repeat the word "Daddy" in it alot, so maybe that is what intrigued her or subconsciously started her on her love of music, I don't know?
It was a really sweet moment for me. She's not even 2 years old yet. I've had a couple "run ins" with music and her. When she was born Adele's album 21 had come out and 'Someone like you' became an instant favorite. When I help her I would in my of course very pathetic voice sing that to her in her ear kinda thing.
Well couple months later I had music playing on my phone and 'someone like you' comes on and she freaks out! I had to give her my phone and she sat there just staring at it. I knew.
Anyways, later tonight I played 'Fool to cry' on my phone and she had to take it and hold it up to her head/ear like she was having a conversation. She was listening. I was hoping she would try and sing again but it never happened. Maybe a few more times?
Tegan and Sara covering The Rolling Stones "Fool to Cry":
Tegan and Sara have an awesome cover of Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark' if you wanna check it out.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last cover song of the year, better make it good! We got a little preview for next years release of "chimes of freedom" Bob Dylan's 4 disc tribute. Adele of course contributes her cover of To Make You Feel My Love, which I could post, but we've all heard it before. I'm going to post a song by an artist I don't really care for. I don't own any of her songs,which she sold alot, but just didn't hit a chord with me. She's a wanna be Lady Gaga I think, kind of a freak, not really a good voice for anything like that either... Until I heard this song... Bob Dylan's original is of course just him, an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. Kesha's version is even more stripped down, almost acapella. I think the only other music is a low cello in the background. Which leaves room for Kesha to have to carry the song with only her voice. To my suprise she does, and does it greatly. I never knew she could sing, her songs are all pop and heavily produced. Towards the end of the song its hard to tell, she either is sniffling from a cold or maybe she's emotionally involved and that brings on the tears n sniffles? Either way sounds great I think. Here you go with Kesha's cover of Bob Dylan's "Dont think twice its all right".
So, its Christmas cover song time. Everybody has their favorite Christmas song(s). When you listen to the radio you hear the same thing thats been played for 50+ years. Some people will tell you Nat King Cole's The Christmas song is their favorite, or Bing Crosby's White Christmas, ect... Me personally, I like the less conventional songs, or the non traditional pieces. Some of them may include Brandi Carlile's The Heartache Can Wait, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's cover of Mr. Snow Miser or Ray Charles' That Spirit of Christmas to name a few. If I had to choose a favorite though I think it would be River by Joni Mitchel. Which I believe I heard somewhere it really wasn't meant to be a Christmas song, but ended up being that way. There are some good covers out there, there are some mediocre ones out there too. Here are some of my favorite covers of Joni Mitchel's River: Rosie Thomas, Amie Mann, Angus Stone and believe it or not Robert Downey Jr. Thats right Ironman himself sang the song on an episode of an Alley Mcbeal TV show. So they put it on a Christmas album.
Back in high school there wasn't much to do. In a way it was like the 1940's where people gathered around the radio and listened to shows. Me & my friends would listen to the radio, for music though. At the time the 'pop' station we listened to had a different segment every night. 'New music Monday', they played a new song. 'Two for Tuesday' they played 2 songs by a certain artist, I believe Wednesday was 'sing for your suggestion',you called in and sang a line from a song, if the DJ liked it he played your request. Can't remember Thursday. I think Friday was 'Friday I'm in love', where you call in and dedicate a song or something. I remember at least once during the program someone would dedicate Ugly kid Joe's song "I hate everything about you". Funny stuff, we tuned in for that mostly, see who was gonna get the 'hate' song. Anyway, I can't think of Tuesday without thinking "Two for Tuesday". for some reason maybe that was my favorite. Maybe I remember it the most because nothing was going on Tuesdays and I caught that program the most? So today is a Two for Tuesday! With the release of Evanescence's new self titled album I had to make adjustments to some of my mixed Evanescence CDs I listen to in the car. Neither of these 2 songs are from that CD ( which is good by the way )but I had to add 3 slow songs to my slow songs CD. Since I was re-burning the mix I added 2 other songs that were not on the original slow mix CD. Here are those 2 songs, both covers, both just Amy Lee. 1st comes from the movie Nightmare Before Christmas and the CD "A nightmare Revisited". That CD is kinda cool. Amy covers 'Sally's Song'. On that CD Marilyn Manson does an awesome version of 'This is Halloween'. Here is Amy Lee with Sally's Song
2nd is off the 'Muppets:The green album' titled Halfway down the stairs.
I couldn't remember the song from the muppets so I had to youtube it. Then It came back to me. Here is the original video from the muppets that had this song.
So R.E.M. announced they are splitting up, the band is no longer. Which comes as a suprise cuz I thought they were threw along time ago? Hadn't heard anything new or good since the early 90's. Their album Automatic For The People is probably in everyone's collection. That was/is one of the best albums ever I think. From that album came one of my all time favorite songs, Everybody Hurts. I thought about using the Corrs' cover version they did from an MTV Uplugged session. But alot of people know that one, so I went deeper and found this ditty by someone named Frida. Its not that big of a deal. She's not that great of a singer, the arrangement isn't anything to fuss over, but its by a woman and a piano which is different from the original by a man and guitars.
Doing a little something different this time around. Still a cover, but a couple instrumental versions. Kings of Leon's Closer is a fantastic song! It has a sound and feel to it that reminds me of the old days living at home when I'd sit on the floor in my room and listen to music. I had only the glow of the stereo lights, usually the headphones were on, leaning up against the bed. I can't think of the songs it reminds me of, all I know is that it takes me back to that spot for some reason. Or before turning on the dirt road to go home I'd go strait up a different dirt road where you'd climb a little hill and have an overlook of Bridger Valley. I'd go there sometimes, sit on the hood of the truck and blast some tunes. There's just something about being isolated with just you and a stereo. Anyway, thats what I get from this song. The mood, the spooky feel, the lyrics just hit a cord somewhere. There are thousands of covers of this song, some good, alot bad. I found a group 'The piano tribute players' that do nothing but cover songs, by you guessed it-piano. They did a couple of kings of Leon songs. I loved their version of Closer. Even though there is only one instrument playing you still get the overall feel of the original song, that darker, listening alone mood to it. Next version of Closer is another instrumental version, but this time acoustically covered. The group is Guitar tribute players, wonder if they are the same people as the piano guys? They use a violin along with guitars and although you don't get the dark/spooky mood I love from the piano and original its still good and has its own qualities. This version makes me think of driving through the desert for some reason, still kinda lonely but different. I have tons of covers I wanna do, but when I sit and decide which to post I just blank. Or when I'm driving and hear one I think I'll do that, but then forget what it was. I added the original song by Kings of Leon in case you haven't heard it before, so you get what I mean.
In rememberence of Jani Lane, lead singer of the 80's hair band 'Warrant'. I submit this "part 2" or covering of their own song I saw red.
Its just an acoustic guitar and Jani singing. The original if you don't remember was a Classic power ballad. This version was a B side to another Warrant cassette single I picked up back in the day. Huh,huh cassette singles. I still have my giant collection of them, crazy. I loved the B sides.
Anyway, Warrant's acoustic versoin of I saw red:
So the other day as I was traveling for work I went through an old CD envelope. Listened to some old compilation CDs I had made. On one of these I heard "Walk on by" by Cyndi Lauper. Many years ago when I first heard this song, it was from Cyndi's cover album "At Last". Where she covered alot of 'old' songs. Walk on by was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick I believe. I've always loved Cyndi Lauper. From back when she first came out in the 80's, to now. When she stopped coloring her hair 50 different ways and wearing outrageous costumes, and just concentrated on singing and being professional, I think thats when she shined. She has an amazing voice. You never heard her sing many ballads. In the early-mid 90's she put out a 'greatest hits' album. It had a few ballads on there, and they were my favorite. So going back a few years, a retro artist covering a golden oldie, I give you Cyndi's Lauper's take on Dionne Warwick's Walk On By:
Yeah I got lazy on this one. Not an old song, not an unknown either. Probably the biggest hit so far this year I think. Wanna hear something crazy? Back in the day artists sold albums by the millions. Since 2004 when they started tracking digital download sales (legally) there have only been 2 albums that have sold over a million "full" album downloads. And one album with a million full CD downloads plus a million actual CD purchases. Sure there are singles that sell in the multi millions, but full albums and CD album purchases. Eminem's Recovery and Adele's 21. Lady Gaga's Monster will hit that mark soon. Adele is the first and only artist to do both so far. Pretty crazy feet in this age of the digital download era. Which brings us to this cover. Adele's first single off the new album blew up on the charts and the covers. Its probably been covered by 100's of thousands amatures and has been done by dozens of professional artists. Linkin Park's front man Chester Bennington pretty much is the only dude to have the pipes necessary to belt out the chorus. They bring it down with just a piano and the vocals. There is another acoustic attempt thats on youtube, but they polish with this one.
