The Return of Cover Songs III

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
An unlikely cover at first blush, but it really works well. Metalheads Queensryche covering Billy Idol's 80s hit "Rebel Yell". Rocks nice and hard like it should. And, really, not the only one of Idol's songs that would work as metal.

 
And the latest from cover band First to Eleven. It's the Spice Girls "Wannabe" but with a rock sound. The singers are F211 lead singer Audra Miller and some of her musical friends. And given that this is a one-off, the harmonies among the singers come off pretty well.


And the outro is actually funny if you know the band because the four women do a near perfect version of the band's usual outro.
 
Michael Jackson's "Thriller" done as Asian folk metal? Yes, please. Nini Music, a Taiwanese musician, has done some amazing, and sometimes kind of crazy, work bringing traditional Chinese music together with Western rock. Her contribution to Halloween is no exception.

 
REM is not an easy band to cover well. Newfie greats Great Big Sea pulled it off, with their folk cover of It's The End Of The World becoming an early hit for them.

This may be another case as First to Eleven nail Losing My Religion in an acoustic setting. Audra goes low here. She's basically a mezzo but here goes into alto territory at times.


And last week, they reminded us that they do have some metalhead lurking in their musical DNA, successfully tackling one of the signature songs of eighties heavy metal, Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden.

 
More metal from the kids from Erie. This is not their first time covering Metallica and it's a great performance of one of the many classics from that band's "Black Album".

 
The cover that first put me onto First to Eleven was one they did of "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns'n'Roses. Matt Yost is up to the challenge of playing Slash's guitar solos and Audra is heck of a lot nicer to listen to than Axl. They go back to the GnR well from time to time and this week, they covered one of the first hits from Axl and the boys, "Welcome to the Jungle." Cute video, too, of them playing Guitar Hero to their version of the song.

 
So when I was paying tribute to Denny Laine, I did not realize that around the time of his death, Canadian rockers The Trews had just done a live cover of "Mull of Kintyre", which Laine co-wrote with Paul McCartney for the band Wings. Pipes are courtesy of the Pipes & Drums of the Royal Highland Fusilliers of Canada.

 
F211's weekly cover this week was "Believe" by Cher. They rock it a bit harder than the original and no battleships or barely there attire are involved (look up the original).

 
Apollo5 are part of the Voces8 Foundation family of artists so work to a very high standard. The quintet have done some amazing work over the years, but may have outdone themselves here. "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan is a soft, beautiful, sad song inspired by her thoughts about why so many musicians turn to drugs and are destroyed by them, particularly the death of Jonathan Melvoin of the band Smashing Pumpkins. This gorgeous a capella arrangement by Apollo5 soprano Penelope Appleyard (the woman who sings lead on the first verse and chorus) kicks all of that up a notch or three.

 
Lucy Thomas packs a lovely voice. She has been generating hits through her work on YouTube and other platforms for a few years and is slated to star in an upcoming musical.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" is a beautiful ballad by the 60s-70s band Procul Harum, written by the late Gary Brooker with elements "Air on the G String", which is an arrangement of the 3rd movement from Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major. So a pop-rock hit with Bach as a co-writer, in other words. :giggle:

Here's Lucy with her version of the song, which I quite like.

 
For their last cover of 2023, First to Eleven went, perhaps naturally, to a classic "party song" - "Dancing Queen" by ABBA but with a harder rock spin. Audra's voice is perfect for ABBA and I should see if they have covered the Swedish pop giants before.

 
Noise is the hardest rocking tune on Nightwish's 2020 album "Human::Nature" so I was intrigued to see the acoustic band Only Pretending cover it. And it's a perfect cover in that it is recognizable as the song, but takes it in a new, interesting direction. And given that the original makes full use of Nightwish vocalist Floor Jansen's incredible range and power, filling the song with belts and even some of Floor's operatic voice, Only Pretending vocalist Melanie Mau does an amazing job of reframing it vocally to work in her own voice.


And live from their 2021 virtual concerts, Nightwish's original.

 
ninj said:
I bleepin' love this band.
Click to expand...
It fits with a somatic concept as it is evoked! Can you imagine drawing things out of the dark, inky well of what's passé? Some people are stuck on another point ... a mere lack of reference! That's a type of alternate ... unnamed and thus un called for like some world leaders ... stretchy abstract?
 
ninj said:
Click to expand...

But one can dream until one slams into reality ... it is loaded with difficult fold that dictate! Especially about loving and all that is related and reactive ... many baffled by this situation are due for the ... yes the WOKE thing that they despise! Thus they dash and RIP through weird domains ... frightened of themselves!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top