Category: Music

Music

4 Songs, 32 covers, 1 bracket challenge

pollywannamath

A great cover reenvisions and reinvents the original song. Johnny Cash’s cover of Nine Inch Nail’s Hurt, introduced me to a song and band that I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Cash’s age, experience, and public image added a dimension to the original song. Likewise, Hendrix’s cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower cemented the song’s meaning within the context of the 60’s.

Some songs are destined to be covered. It seems that every artist has a version of The Beatles’ Yesterday. For a little quarantine fun, I took four of those songs and built a bracket of popular covers on Spotify:

I seeded the songs based on the number of average monthly listens of the recording artist and built the following rubric for evaluation. The covers should be judged on:

  • Artistic License: How does the artist change the sound or meaning of the original song. (I did not include covers that matched style and interpretation of the original in the bracket)
  • Pull: How captivating is the song? How much does it make you (the listener) want to dance, sing, cry, or reflect?
  • Orchestration: How well does the adaptation make use of the instrumentation in the song?
  • Vocal Quality: Does the singer sound good?
  • Intangibles: Does the cover deserve special attention for a reason not listed above?

I’ll leave the empty bracket below and update the post with my completed personal evaluation at the end of the month. I encourage readers to fill theirs out, or create their own version with different genres or song mixes.

Bonus Content: My recent fascination with “Pure Imagination” stems from a real-life Charlie and the Chocolate Factory story.

Music

The magic of Tim Minchin

pollywannamath

Tim Minchin’s new TV show, Upright, is available for US consumers on the Sundance channel. The show is a modern, Australian, take on John Hughes’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Although I am only one episode in, I highly recommend the series. Within the first few scenes, it’s clear that Minchin’s character is starting a transformative journey.

The casting of Minchin as Lucky Flynn, the protagonist, wasn’t an immediately obvious choice. Minchin has never been known as a series-leading actor. However, Minchin’s career has been defined by transformation.

Do you agree that the magic of Kate Moss Tim Minchin lies in her history…the informality of her early shots compared to this stuff, so you just always know that, despite the high fashion, she’s still just that cheeky normal naked girl on the beach

About Time

Minchin first made a name for himself as a musical comedian specializing in bleak humor and dark satire. His comedy is critical of conservative religion, hypocrisy, and idealistic views of romance, and is rarely suitable for children.

Minchin on relationships (safe-ish for work)

Minchin has, at least, four recorded comedy specials (two currently on Netflix) full of his critical wit. As his comedy career was approaching his Zenith, Minchin co-wrote Matilda the Musical. The show was nominated for 12 Tony awards and toured on Broadway for 4 years.

The move from Broadway to musicals suited for young audiences was actually a return to Minchin’s original career aspirations. After college, Minchin planned to write “serious” music and act on stage.

Minchin’s autobiography

If a successful comedy career afforded Minchin the ability to write Broadway musicals, then the success of his Broadway musicals (Minchin co-adapted Groundhog Day as well) afforded him the notoriety to make the “serious” songs he initially planned.

At 45, Minchin is set to debut his first studio album in November of this year. Like his comedy, the singles he released deal with the darker aspects of human existence. Still he rejects the idea of an idyllic relationship, although he approaches the subject with more vulnerability:

Minchin’s second single

Maybe Minchin was the obvious choice. From “serious” songwriter, to comedian, to Broadway, back to singer, and now to starring in a TV series, Minchin had his own Planes, Trains and Automobiles journey. Who better to portray an adaptation on TV?