Everyone Wants to be Covered in Beyonce's "Love"; Solange Snuggles Up with Indie Bands
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Artist:
First there was this:
Antony and the Johnsons "Crazy in Love"
Then Snow Patrol worked out their crazy, (although when played with guitars it sounds more like a battle song out of a Nintendo game). Even Switchfoot called Beyonce's name, two, three times in a row on a Yahoo session.
Once Bey revealed her Sasha Fierce side, kid sis Solange got down with covering gospelizing the hell out of Björk's "It's Oh So Quiet"
And more recently, she got mad love for her cover of The Dirty Projectors' "Stillness is the Move," backed with an oh-so-familiar sample, which I'm still drooling over. She should make a video for this song.
Now, since Sasha Fierce has been out for a while, it seems that the indie crowd is running to cover the latest Queen Bey songs. Florence and The Machine did "Halo" on a radio performance, The Big Pink took on "Sweet Dreams"
And oh look, here's Jamie T wishing he were a boy:
Port O'Brien went one step further when they brought us into the studio to show how they formulated their cover of "Halo."
All of this begs the question...who's covered "Single Ladies"?
Comments (11)
Nice post B. Alot to absorb here but fun nonetheless. I'm not that into Beyonce myself but obviously she's had a huge influence on pop music, that's for sure. The only cover I had heard was Antony's beautiful version.
I didn't really like many of the Bjork covers from the stereogum sessions. Maybe just Hyperballad and Isobel and that's it.
Don't get me wrong, big fan of obscure covers. Never heard the Antony, Augusts1...sounds good...
Antony has a fascinating voice. Unfortunately live he can be quite infuriating as I discovered when I saw him at Coachella Festival this past April. He did all new, slow & dirgey songs, which is so not what you want to do at a fest. His voice was impressive live though, on a good note.
Btw, thx for the Stereogum link, I dled that Bjork tribute album & am listening now. Liking it quite a bit.
Great link, Eric!
August, I can imagine it'd be strange to see Antony in a festival setting. The slow songs would be beautiful at some place like, oh, say, the SF Symphony Hall!
Sweet! I just read that the Florence and the Machine box set will include the cover of "Halo" and a bunch of other cover songs and goodies! http://mog.com/blog_post/content/457/1599018
i had no idea golden gram is in port o'brien. iiiiiiii learned something today.
Whether or not you like these versions, i really hope you guys respect Solange's "reinventions" as opposed to just doing "covers". i'm actually wondering/hoping she came up with the concepts herself. as a guy that does a lot of these i know it can be tricky, but i'd always rather hear a reinvention. there are too many people just doing what could be considered karaoke-style covers.
good point, robin. solange's reworkings are much more deserving of the reinvention title rather than a mere cover version.
I'm glad Solange has come a long way from just singing over an indie darling's instrumental (her last album featured her singing over tracks by Thievery Corporation and Boards of Canada).
Stillness in the Move was my introduction to Solange's music. It's funny that last week I was walking to my home and I bumped into her (yes, I really did). She is very approachable and sweet. I told her to keep her head up b/c I was really annoyed with people saying some inappropriate things about her evolution as a young lady (she cut her hair). Some people are just jealous as I told her.
Then, when I got home I checked her twitter page and saw that she had shared the single to, "Stillness is the Move" I was hooked.
I appreciate your informative post, BrittanyBF! xox
That is SO SO cool! I love the slight edge she's got going for her. It was her Twitter page that led me to her first Bjork cover, which came about when I was very much into her Sol-Angels lp.