7 June 2013 - Carrie Underwood - Paradise City

Awwww yeah. You have to admit that there's something kinda awesome (hot) about the wholesome "Good Girl" Carrie Underwood singing a song by the ultimate bad boys of rock and roll.

5 June 2013 - Jewel - Needle and the Damage Done

Oddly enough, the only time I've ever seen Jewel in concert was when she opened up for Neil Young in the mid-90s. Actually, Jewel was the middle act. The Afghan Whigs opened up the show. Confusing times. Anyway, here's everyone's favorite yodeling country folkie putting her stamp on Needle and the Damage Done.

4 June 2013 - Lizzy Land - Pumped Up Kicks & When I'm Small

I've decided to occasionally feature YouTube-only artists on here, but I have some criteria that I'm going to use to choose who gets posted.  First of all, the artist needs to have at least one video of themselves performing out and live, for an audience.  Second, the artist needs to do something to blow me away.

Lizzy Land, an artist out of the Portland, OR scene currently living in Los Angeles, fits criteria #1 with this heavily beat-boxed version of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks".  I want you to notice how she layers this completely acapella version in a live setting, starting with her beatboxed background "instruments", and continuing with the vocals.  It's simply constructed, but it gives the song a rich feeling.


Remember what I said Criteria #2 was? The artist has to blow me away.

Lizzy starts with an acoustic guitar piece - a bassline of sorts - then layers a beat on the guitar over that. She adds a 2nd guitar piece on top of that. Layer 4 is a breathy vocal paired with a simple keyboard part.  Then the main vocals start.  There are keyboard accompaniments for parts of the vocals as well.  And yes, near the end, there's a 6th layer - a vocal "ah oh" type thing.

The song in its original form, by Phantogram, is one of my favorites.  So that Lizzy Land - which, according to her Twitter profile, isn't just a stage name, by the way - can make me not hate her version is an accomplishment already.  That she can make me love her version, and make it her own, and blow me away with a well-constructed song, speaks volumes.

4 June 2013 - Selena Gomez and The Scene - I Knew You Were Trouble

Did you ever get a song inexplicably stuck in your head?

Er, yeah, me neither.

In all seriousness, my daughters can't agree on much, but they can both agree that they love Taylor Swift.  (My co-blogger Scott shares that same love, which he details here) And, since this blog is more focused on covers, I figured I'd find a fun young artist doing a cover.

I didn't expect that it would be Selena Gomez that I would find, especially since we've had her here in the past.  (We've featured her over on the other blog before as well) It's a simple acoustic version, that once again is well-suited for Selena's high but slightly raspy voice.



By the way, Scott posted Selena's new song at Wicked Guilty Pleasures today.  Check it out!

3 June 2013 - Smashing Pumpkins - Space Oddity

As an old Smashing Pumpkins fan I TOTALLY want to hate Billy's latest version of the band. But I can't. And even though I don't listen to them too much these days (this has more to do with my changing musical tastes and less to do with who is or isn't in the band) they always did trippy well as evidenced by this David Bowie cover.

31 May 2013 - Avril Lavigne - Tik Tok

TGIF! Let's get the celebration started a little early this week with Avril Lavigne almost keeping a straight face while covering Ke$ha's 2009 party anthem Tik Tok.

30 May 2013 - MxPx - I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

I thought this was going to be a terrible cover.  I mean, after all, it was meant to be sung by Scottish twins.  And it's an earnest folk tune, not a dark punk song.

And yet this punky version comes off just as earnest and perhaps even a bit more impassioned than the original.



Here's a more complete cover. It's a little fuzzier to hear, but the passion still comes through.