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Listening to: 'Help Yourself' by Amy Winehouse [Frank]
One of my favourite genres of music is soul. I don't mind if it's Motown, Chicago or blue-eyed soul, I love it all. I'm not sure when I got into it...but I have a feeling my neighbour playing The Commodores full blast every Sunday morning when I was growing up had something to do with it!
The song I've chosen to cover this time was co-written by Carole King, and originally performed by The Shirelles. It's been covered gazillions of times from the '60s up until this year - the Wikipedia entry for the song has a list. I've heard a few of them - notably those by Dusty Springfield and Carole King herself...but the original and the Dusty version are too fast for my liking, and the Carole King version I find a bit frilly (for lack of a better word). The only version I've heard that manages to capture the vulnerability depicted in the lyrics is, unsurprisingly, by Amy Winehouse.
I love Amy Winehouse. I think she's an amazingly gifted musician. Her Back to Black album is possibly my favourite out of all the albums I own. I remember playing it in the car for my parents when I was home last year (after the "careful, the language and themes aren't very family-friendly" warning)...they loved it, and my mother said she could hear the sadness in Amy's voice. I really really hope the next album (scheduled for release next year) lives upto expectations...goodness knows she's had enough of drama in the past two years to get some lyrical inspiration!
Anyway, back to the song. I knew I wouldn't be able to do Amy's version justice, so I kinda made it a bit more '60s-esque (I hope) with the harmony and the tempo...along the lines of this version by Brenda Lee. So here is my rendition of 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' by The Shirelles (and Amy Winehouse, amongst others). Enjoy!
If you want to listen to it offline, you can download it here. I can't believe it's taken me this long to get another cover done! Ah well, better late than never :-). There's a bit of distortion in places and you might need to turn the volume up a bit...hopefully all these technical hitches will be sorted out for the next cover, whenever that is.
Right, now it's time for bed. Or rather, it was time for bed a while back. Sigh.
Listening to: Radio 1
So I know I haven't posted any songs recently...I just haven't had the time. I have an idea for one song and bits recorded for another song, so hopefully I'll get around to completing them soon.
In the meantime, it's business as usual over at the Darkside...Gehan's just done a beautiful rendition of Rob Thomas' Ever the Same, and in case you're one of the few ppl that follows my blog and not his (eh? what's wrong with you? :P ), this is to plug the fact that the backing vocals on the recording are by yours truly. So go check it out here!
Listening to: 'Ain't No Rest for the Wicked' by Cage the Elephant [Cage the Elephant]
Back in February, there was a comment on one of my posts; a proposal of sorts. I wasn't sure if it was meant seriously or not, but I decided to assume that it was. If it wasn't...oops, too late! :P.
Anyway, six months and a few emails and mp3s later, here we are! Yes, PseudoRandom has actually recorded a duet with the mighty Darkside! It was his song choice, and considering how much of a Snow Patrol fan I am, I guess it's no surprise that I was more than willing. My contribution kinda took a back seat due to the PhD, moving house etc., but thankfully things settled down and I managed to find time. And I won't deny that I may have been a bit 'keen' to get this done before he becomes famous and all ;-).
I have to say I'm really proud of this; when I started this blog, I never imagined I'd be using it to showcase my own singing, let alone a duet with a blogger two continents away! As Shorty said,Amazing thing no...technology??
Profound, I know. Anyway, enough chat. Here it is: 'Set the Fire to the Third Bar' - originally by Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright, from their album Eyes Open. Piano and male vocals by Gehan, female vocals by moi (duh). Enjoy!
If you want to listen to it offline, you can download it here. And for those of you who live to see Gehan's headless videos *cough*Jerry*cough*, there's a video version up on his blog :-).
Listening to: 'Female of the Species' by Space [Spiders]
Most people view a trip to the cinema as a social activity. I'll accept, it's a fun thing to do as a group. But, I think a lot of people underestimate the joy to be had in going to the movies alone. In fact, there generally seems to be a negative stigma associated with publicly having fun by yourself (mind out of gutter, please :P ). I mean, what would you think if you saw someone having dinner at a nice restaurant by themselves?
After a few instances of missing out on some movies because everyone I knew had other people they could (and did) go with, I figured why should I suffer because I haven't got any peeps who are as jobless as moi? So I started going to the cinema by myself. And you know what? It's pretty damn fun :D. For starters, you actually watch the movie. And then you don't feel pressured to subscribe to the majority view about which part was best, which part sucked, who was hotter etc. You can go as early as you like and get the best seat in the house. And you can type out the first two paragraphs of your next blog post on your phone while you wait for the trailers to start ;-). It's your movie to enjoy, yours alone. Sorta like a personal treat. Of course if it really moves you, you've got tons of excess emotion afterwards...but then that's what blogs are for, right? :-)
So tonight I went by myself to see Wolverine. And predictably, I loved it. There's something about that Marvel intro that makes my heart beat just a little bit faster :-). Now all you comic geeks are probably gonna watch it and find a million and one flaws ('cos that's what you guys like to do), but for the casual fan, it was great. The acting was good, the casting was spot on (Liev Schreiber man, awesome), the special effects were funkaaay, and of course there was an abundance of hotness. Why couldn't Ryan Reynolds *drool* stay on screen for longer? Waaah. But I suppose that was balanced by the number of scenes with a topless Hugh Jackman *happy sigh*.
There are, in my mind, only two points for contention. One is that the film ended with me wanting more. I suppose that's the whole point...to generate an appetite for whichever X-Men Origins installment comes next, but still. There has been criticism that there were too many auxiliary characters, but I thought that fitted in quite well. The other point is the theme. It is a very sad movie. There's a lot about pain...the pain of loss, the pain of knowing...and the message that physical pain is nothing compared to emotional pain. And all the way home, one song was ringing in my ears.
I wasn't planning on recording this and I haven't put a lot of effort into it (so much so that I'm not even sure I like what I've done with it). The original from 1980 is not my favourite piece of music, though I think Baz Luhrmann gave the song meaning in Moulin Rouge! in 2001. Anyway, here it is.
Thanks to Fallen for tidying the track up :-).
Listening to: nothing
I hate what my experiments are doing to me. My body now seems to think that it's normal to be working into the wee hours of the morning, so I can't actually get myself to bed until 3.30am. It's not that I'm lying in bed counting sheep...I'm sitting at the computer thinking "I should probably sleep". Yeah, I don't get it either. It means that I only wake up close to midday, and then I'm at work until close to midnight, and...you get the picture. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to motivate myself to get some sleep at the same time as the rest of the UK.
Anyway...the topic of this post? Oh yeah. So in my last post, I mentioned that I'd been working on a pop cover that was proving rather troublesome. I know we all take pop music for granted, but I've realised maybe that's not fair! I've always been one to sing the smoochy love songs rather than the fast-paced bodyrockers...I'm always more comfortable with songs that give me enough time to breathe, pronounce my words properly and most importantly, hit the right notes. Pop songs are generally too fast to allow any of these, making it quite difficult to sound good (without a lot of processing)! But I still love pop music...and I love this song. The original is full of life and warrants a 'jump around the room' tag in my last.fm library :-) 'cos that's what it makes me wanna do, and the lyrics remind me of one of my recent posts. So I'm stepping outside my comfort zone and singing a fast pop song. Eek! As usual, I'm not entirely happy with it...but then I don't think I ever will be, so I'm getting it out there before I spend/waste any more time on it. Don't take it too seriously, 'cos pop music was never meant to be taken seriously :-). This is an extremely stripped-back version of Katy Perry's One of the Boys, the title track on her debut album. You can hear it as it was meant to be heard here.
Here you go!
Listening to: 'In The Summertime' by Shaggy ft. Rayvon [Boombastic]
The original plan for singing on the blog was for me to try my hand at a variety of styles, to reflect my somewhat bizarre taste in music. I've done one jazz, one indie and one adult contemporary...so numero quattro was supposed to be a pop cover. However, I've been working on it for a while and the perfectionist in me still isn't happy with it...so you're gonna have to hang on for a bit. In the meantime, and in light of my last post, I thought I'd do this unaccompanied jazz cover.
The lyrics for Smile were written by John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons, and the music was composed by the legendary Charlie Chaplin in 1936. It's since been covered by a gazillion artistes and if I'm not mistaken, Nat King Cole's version is probably the most famous. But forget that, here's mine ;-)
Enjoy!
Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you
Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile
Listening to: nothing
Long overdue, I know. Life's been getting in the way. Anyway, I managed to find a decent karaoke version for this track that didn't restrict my artistic license *cough*. Again, I'm not entirely happy with the timing, but there's no editing or harmonising so it shouldn't sound very choppy. The piano might be a tad too loud, but I can rectify that easily, so no biggie.
Here you go - Angel by Sarah McLachlan, from the City of Angels soundtrack. Enjoy!
In other news, yesterday I sent Shorty an email about how I might deal with a situation, saying "I don't want to be like Jane, but then I don't want to be like Lydia either." I can't believe I compared my response with those of two characters from Pride and Prejudice. Sigh.
I initially posted this yesterday but the audio was playing up, hence the repost.
Listening to: myself (not as narcissistic as it may sound)
Woo, I've done a second track! As I get more into this hobby, I'm becoming more ambitious, so I've decided to rename the 'acoustic session' as the plain and simple 'cover session', just in case.
I have to say I'm not entirely happy with this one. Every time I listen to it, I wish I had a string quartet at hand...or at least a drum set...but I have neither. The timing's a bit off and some of the samples end a bit abruptly, but this is a learning curve, so I'll remember this stuff for next time.
So anyway this time I've gone for indie instead of jazz. The song is One Day Like This by Elbow. To be honest, the inspiration was more from Snow Patrol's Live Lounge version than the original, but it is a beautiful song nonetheless. I might give this song a second attempt at some point, but for now, enjoy!
Listening to: Radio 1
So the conjunctivitis is back with a vengeance and I'm at home again. I've been told to rest my eyes so that rules out most of the stuff I could do at home - catch up on emails, process my photos, prepare for tutorial sessions and so on. Can't even go for a walk 'cos it's snowing again and the pavements are slippery as hell.
So yeah, this is pretty much all I can do. Not a patch on Gehan's videos, but oh well...make do with what you have, eh? I've been wanting to do this for a while and I've got a few options lined up, so we'll see if this becomes a regular feature or not. OK me go get some shut-eye now. Enjoy!
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