Part two of this week’s Cover Friday’s is also about Frank Ocean’s classic “Thinking About You”, but this time the cover is by Yuna, a young Malaysian singer who reimagined this song by only using vocals to create absolutely everything. She sings the backing vocals, the instrumental parts and, obviously, Frank Ocean’s main part. Her voice is flawless, and brings this song into a new light by making it much higher and much… squeakier? But in a good way. Check out Yuna’s cover of “Thinking About You” below, and compare it to Frank Ocean’s original, which is located at the bottom of the post.
By now, we have all heard “Thinkin’ Bout You” a million times, and yet, we all still love it. Even though covering a Frank Ocean tune seems silly because no one has as beautiful of a voice, many have stepped up to the test. First, we have Nite Jewel & Nicholas Krgovich, who made this song much more low-fy, which works well for covers of this song because packing the same power that Ocean does is almost impossible. By bringing down the tone and splitting the vocals between two people, this cover is a pretty solid one. Both voices in this cover are beautiful, but I can’t help feel like they recorded this cover in one of their basements. Check out Nite Jewel & Nicholas Krgovich’s cover of “Thinking About You” below, with Frank Ocean’s classic below it.
Nite Jewel & Nicholas Krgovich – “Thinking About You”
AlunaGeorge’s newest single, “Your Drums, Your Love” is everything I hope for from a European pop/electro/hip-hop based/soul group of space alien tendencies. With out-of-the-world sounding blips beginning “Your Drums, Your Love”, AlunaGeorge (fantastically) treads a middle ground between weird outer space/underwater influences and the pop music charts. The chorus is delightful (there really is no other word for it) and electronic background is enough to get you out onto the floor.
You will be able to get “Your Drums, Your Love” in stores on October 7th, and you can expect AlunaGeorge’s full length sometime in 2013. So, to sedate your need for more electronic grooves, check out “Your Drums, Your Love” below.
We decided to do something a little different every Friday.
Since this blog has been around for quite some time, we decided that it was high time for us to settle down and have a set feature or two. The first (and only…for now) feature that we are going to have will appear each Friday, and will be able to be spotted by their “Cover Fridays” title. Obviously, each article posted under this name will be a cover of a popular (or just one of our favorite) song, but unlike our other posts, this feature will not necessarily feature exclusively new music, but rather, will have a mix of some awesome covers that we have loved for a long time and songs that we have just discovered.
To debut our newest section, we are starting with a double feature! Ellie Goulding with her cover of “High For This” and Coeur de Pirate with her cover of “Wicked Games” (which you can read here) are both going to be featured this week, which is perfect since both were originally recorded by The Weeknd. So without further adieu…
Ellie Goulding, of “Lights” fame, made a cover of The Weeknd’s “High For This” back in the end of May, but I was only turned onto it recently because of summer 2012′s obsession with doing a million dub-step covers of “Lights” that I am forced to listen to on the radio. The actual, original “Lights” is pretty great, but with all the wub wub, I just want to take two Advil and a nap after listening.
Luckily, Goulding’s version of “High for This” is elegantly electric when it needs to be, and quietly sensual in other places. While the original is much more stripped, Goulding’s comes from an electronic European place, without, y’know, bringing too much of that in order to honor the original piece.
Although The Weeknd’s voice is much more powerful and chilling, and also creates more of a demand (“you GOTTA be high for this”), while Goulding’s softer touch lends well to the song but creates a completely different feel that the original does not even explore (“this is something you might be high for…now dance!”).
Frank Ocean is beautiful as usual on “Golden Girl”, singing about how he and a girl are on an island (or something? Maybe it is all ~just a metaphor~). In typical Ocean fashion, this song is a love song about how beautiful she is, etc.
Since most of you will be buying (haha) Frank Ocean’s full length, Channel Orange, on iTunes, then you will be missing out on this track. “Golden Girl” is only available to those who buy the physical copy of the CD (which would be a nice, cool Easter egg…in 1999 when people actually bought CDs). So unless you are making a trip out to where ever you buy CDs these days, you can stream “Golden Girl” here on WGWI. Oh, also, Tyler the Creator has a verse on this.
Remember when I found out who Iggy Azeala was and had a minor break down about how hot she is and how great she was on that song? Well, step aside Iggy because another woman has taken your place. My new crush is EBRU, a soulful girl from the UK who caught my attention today when an interview with her popped up on my newsfeed. After some lurking around the internet, I found her cover of “Swim Good” (originally by Frank Ocean) which is just a more Motownish version of the orignal. Whereas the original is much more lowkey, EBRU’s version features more of a big band sound, which creates an interesting and much louder version of the song.
This then brought me to her newest (and seemingly first original) release, entitled “MAD”. Again, the Mowtown feel is very present throughout the entire song (and video) but EBRU is able to update the song and brings it to a place set in the 2010s. The lyrics are fantastic and extremely relatable, the video is very esthetically pleasing and the music is fantastic.
Give “MAD” a listen by watching the video below, or check out her SoundCloud account. Let me know what you think!
I am high-key a Frank Ocean fan girl, so when he dropped a video of him playing a new song called “Summer Remains”, I jumped on it instantly. The sound quality is actually pretty good, especially in comparison to how bad the video quality is and the awkward beginning to this song is actually pretty cute. Check out “Summer Remains” below.
p.s. There are only 300 views right now, so go watch it now and be one of the ~first to hear it~!
So, full disclosure, I am 19 years old. But thanks to a father with an expansive music collection, I listened to a lot of 70s soul and disco music, including, of course, Donna Summer. Summer was the first artist (ever; not just first female, and not just first black person) to have three consecutive double albums reach #1 on the United States’ Billboard chart, and if that is not enough to get you impressed, she also charted four singles on the U.S. Billboard charts within 13 months.
This song is a nice combination of Fun., The Temptations, Timeflies and Hoodie Allen. Although these songs may seem like kind of a random combination, DJ Sweekuh makes it all seem to work. Considering Hoodie Allen’s first feature length CD just came out last week, it is nice to see him getting some recognition on recent mashups. Also, who doesn’t love The Temptations and Fun.?
