His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Eske Esquire wrote:
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
His Excellency Aethien wrote:
TirithRR wrote:
Gary Jules - Mad World
One of the worst covers ever made.
Because the poppy, upbeat, fast paced original was so good?
Yes.
I feel like there was a lot of good lyric writing done in the 80's that was completely overshadowed by the awful, awful synth garbage that ran over the top of it.
The Gary Jules cover rescues the lyrics from that, and gives 'em a more fitting accompaniment. That's a good cover.
The Gary Jules cover took everything that was good about the song and wrapped it in an awfully generic piano with whiny vocals. The original is dated and very 80's but the upbeat sound and high tempo with the depressing lyrics makes it work whereas the cover sounds like a teenager whining about his life on facebook.
You're going to have to work a little harder to convince me. What's "whiny" about Jules' vocals? What's "generic" about the piano? Why does the upbeat sound and high tempo of the original "work" with the depressing lyrics?
The contrast between the music and the lyrics in the original never struck me as intentionally ironic; that was sort of just the convention of the time. You made songs with jouncy synth backing - the lyrics that went along with them just were whatever they were. Everyone did it, from Flock of Seagulls to Led Zeppelin and back. The end result was a pretty clear zeitgeist, but also a lot of songs whose lyrics are out of step with the sound.
If you think that Gary Jules sounds like a teenager on facebook, then you either haven't listened to the song lately,
or you haven't heard the music that's actually the stuff of whiny teenagers. Fix yo' perception, brah.
Edited, Mar 21st 2013 1:29pm by Eske