Friday, September 14, 2012

under-covers: The Pixies/Henry Lim and His String Quartet

Perhaps, one of the greatest guilty pleasures in my life: the perverse enjoyment I get listening to musicians covering other artist's songs. The weirder the cover, the better! It doesn't matter how awkward or horrible the quality (shitty cell phone video, I'm looking at you), I'm an absolute sucker for this stuff. Here's the latest installment of "under-covers."

The Pixies, one of the most influential and underrated rock bands of the past two decades. Like a lot of people my age, this is the song that first exposed me to the band thanks to the end credits of David Fincher's Fight Club. The song fit so perfectly with the film's theme/finale, I wondered if it was written specifically for the movie! I had no idea who The Pixies were but quickly fell in love with the tune. No wonder, I had grown up on bands like Weezer and Nirvana who worshiped The Pixies pretty hard. Anywaaaaaay, here's the song:


That's so rad. Kim's backing vocals are absolutely haunting. Also, DAT droning guitar wail.

Well here is the cover, from a diehard Pixies fan and a nifty string orchestra backing him up:

Dude's voice is no match for Frank's in terms of sheer insanity, but he sure don't sound bad either. That lovely young woman doing backup vocals is heavenly (audio & visual you dig?) and although I miss the drums, the string arrangement does a phenominal job of highlighting the song's melancholy undertones. So yeah, I love this cover. I still enjoy the original version more, only because it's just one of the coolest fucking songs ever written.

What's your take on this?

9 comments:

  1. Honestly, with a good studio fixing the mistakes and a GREAT producer, that cover could be better than the original. It's got all the elements to make it that perfect kind of sad that just sits perfect with the song, but topping the original would take so much work. Great cover though, I loved it.

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  2. I love it when people do covers using orchestras. The string versions of Dragonforce for example, sound awesome. I loved that song too, I had no idea it was by the Pixies. A friend of mine recently got really in to them, guess it's about time I did too.

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  3. Not a bad cover at all. Would have liked to see the 1st violinist rock out a bit more on Joey's solo, but still a solid performance, and dude sings it just as good as Frank does in concert these days.

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  4. The more I listen to the cover, the more I'm liking it. For a more calmer version, it's definitely good and as you already said, it brings out a more melancholia feel. I'm really liking the girl in the stripes too, heh.

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  5. Makes you want to compare the original to the cover. And think that the cover kinda seems like a draft of the original.

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  6. This is just amazing man, I love Where Is My Mind and to hear it done in this way is incredible, love this so much.

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  7. Not a bad cover but a bit different, always good to hear different takes though.

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  8. you're right, the vocals just can't compare to the original

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  9. What a tough song to try to remake- this Pixies song is one of my favorites of all time.

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