Whoever you are, great voice. I hope you will do great things someday

Bark+Bite blog has the best rant review about her stuff.

Kesha tik-tok lyrics

Great Kesha Rant by Bark+Bite

Can you hear the similarities? Maybe not. Maybe?

You have a better party song? Post it, and I will add it. Lets go fucking insane for 2 ten!

It is an amazing song, and when I listen to it, it reminds me of a lot of traditional Irish music that my friends listen to ( not the Whiskey in the Jar-type songs, but more melodic and emotional )

When you hear this, and then listen to this:

There isn’t much of a similarity, but the arrangements ( especially the vocal arrangements )  in the two songs are directed more to traditional Irish/Gaelic folk music than any other current/past genre ( other than the heaviness of the rock guitar ).

Can anyone say they have/have not though of this? Am I wrong? Do I have something?

Hitting me, was a bass riff that was so familiar and so soothing; it came at me as a backup song during the credits of an interview. I listened, not thinking of its importance, for all backup music to endings of radio bits are made up of obscure pieces from other musicians ( or musicians pertaining to the interview/ journalist piece at hand ).

As I comforted myself into the NPR piece, the bass line hit me. It was an exact ( almost exact ) riff of an R&B song that I heard when I was a kid:

But it wasn’t this song at all. The surprise came first with the intuition that the former song took the riff from a piece that was older:

It is one of those times that you would be upset that you didn’t know a song you liked was semi-covered, but you are comforted somehow with the fact that the riff did exist some time before, and that it was liked by others. It was liked by others who wouldn’t neccesarily be privy to any hip-hop or R&B. Not others who would give any importance to those who used the riff for their albums.

But to hear it, and hear where it was given birth, it gives me a better love for those who “covered” it and felt it was a good enough riff to exchange it in a tengent genre for others to listen. It makes me like the songs that use this riff so much more. It makes me want to find other similar ventures of current and past music; to find musical pieces that have been used in history to create mainstream music.

Let’s be honest: Could you ever think a Chingy song would be derived from a Jaco Pastorius bassline? I don’t think so.

The band is featured as a duo-lead singing piece ( I am guessing Kitty and Daisy ) anchored by a pianist ( I am guessing Lewis ), a guitarist and bassist.

The two lead women are on stage wearing beautiful ruffle dresses ( strapped, with one green and one blue ), along with Lewis, formally dressed in a nice tuxedo. The whole motif is pretty much a homage to the 50′s swing-like atmosphere, and their musical talent pulled it off.

They played this song for Jimmy Fallon’s audience:

I have heard this song in the past, but was very unfamiliar when they had played it. But the emotion, the vocals, and the affect of the combination of all the acoustic instruments made it worthwhile to listen.

The song was very hard and had a head-bopping appeal, especially considering the only rhythm was created by the initial clapping of the band supplemented with one the of the girls performing on a single snare while singing in tandem with the other.

My only qualm ( and it might be because of my affinity to Burt Bacharach ) might be that towards the end of the song there wasn’t much they did to enhance their combined vocals. They didn’t really get louder, nor did they harmonize any chords with each other. It might have been the way the audio was rendered to television, but it didn’t sound as loud as it should’ve been for three voices to belt out the chorus simultaneously.

But the talent is there, the ferocity is there. Hopefully the fans will follow. I happen to have the unlucky luck to write about them without having a chance to expand upon my knowledge of them live, since they won’t be touring in my area. I will try to check them out though.
Here is their Myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/kittydaisyandlewis

It has been a sad week for the talented Rihanna. I wanted to write something positive about her away from her current situation. Going through some of the news and links, I stumbled upon an acoustic version of her song umbrella. I heard this version a few months back, and it is really catchy.

I never really liked the song, or any of her music, but in the acoustic format I had a greater appreciation for the songwriting put into it.

During this trek, I also was bombarded with an assortment of covers of the song. This song seems to be liked by a lot of people, seeing that everyone and their mothers are creating their own versions of it. I feel this might be the most covered pop song of the 21st century ( or maybe My Immortal? )

Some people were really good, with very sweet voices, cool arrangements, or serene minimalism. Others were cursed with off-key vocals, bad recording, or saturated with mundanity.

So, here’s the top 10 list of the best Rihanna Umbrella covers gathered from the internet. If you have others, audio or video, that can beat these, email me, and I will make a revision in the future.

Judging by:

• Originality of arrangement
• Vocals
• Use of instruments
• Use of melody or minimalism ( both are good if done well )
• quality of recording
• Getting the song right ( ie: missing lyrics, bad chords )
• Overall impact ( Wow me like Simon on American Idol )

Just a note: Very few covers hit the final chord of the chorus chord progression right before ( It’s raining ). I understand the triviality ( sounding like the architect from the Matrix ), but it defines the impact of the song. Keeping the progression the same as the other choruses is fine because it blends right into the ending chorus, but it doesn’t hit as hard. Just a thought.

I scored while listening to the song. I only re-scored a song if I felt I didn’t give it enough time and listened to it again. I cut it up into pages since some people can’t handle more than two embedded videos at a time. Drum roll, please!

Opens the letter

Honorable Mentions:

Coco Paragua

Just like with the club-house beats, the reggaeton beat has the ability to emulate any song. Would not be surpirsed if there is a reggaeton cover of a Yes song ( I took a look. No go ). But this sounds good.

Plain White T’s

Reading lyrics is lame, and you can’t make a top list when you are reading from a piece of paper. This song isn’t that hard to remember. You don’t see the guitarist reading sheet music. Give them the effort for doing it though.

Other Honorable Mentions

Alejandro Monzano -Soft reverb is always nice. A little plain, but a good voice.

PV/Nova: Made me want to write a new Care Bears episode. Happiest version by far!

Now, for the top 10!

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