Poopot's Cover Challenge #25 - the letter L voting

flying_pie

Well it's finally time to vote on the letter L with a great amount of entries to choose from, even if a few regulars sadly couldn't join the fun.

you can hear all the tracks in the playlist:

https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sets/poopots-cover-challenge-25-l

All that is required is to pick your top three and post them in the thread below.

Points are awarded as follows - 5 points for first place, 3 points for second place and 1 point for third place.

There is a bonus 5 points for covering the specified track which was The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret by QOTSA

Entrants obviously aren't allowed to vote for themselves. Voting closes at 11.30pm on  Friday 5th January 2024

The entry with the most points gets to pick the next song to be covered. In the event of a tie for first place then all those tied will choose a song.

ALL ENTRANTS PLEASE HAVE YOUR IDEAS READY FOR THE NEXT CHALLENGE. YOU WILL HAVE ONLY 48HRS AFTER VOTING CLOSES TO MESSAGE ME WITH YOUR SONG CHOICE. IF YOU FAIL TO DO SO THEN I'LL END UP CHOOSING IT FOR YOU! 

Good luck

fnpt

Ok, I’ll go first:

@thecolourbox Last goodbye 
@TTony  The lost art
@flying_pie Look what you made me do 

thecolourbox

Very much looking forward to listening to the playlist in full again in order to sort my points out. This is definitely one of the best parts of the Covers/Composition Challenges for me (the listening) and the various bits of feedback and liner notes that surface as we go along.

TTony

I've listened through a few times now, but this morning was the first time I was able to listen properly through the headphones.  And still not sure about where to put the points ...

Flying Pie - Look What - Having now Spotify'd the original ... what a brilliant version!  Cringe?  No!!  
Colourbox - Living on a Prayer - obviously I knew this one, but another track that's a complete re-interpretation.  Brilliant again.
Idiotwind - Lawyers Guns & Money - I mis-guessed the original artist for this.
Colourbox - Like a Stone - Beautiful track, playing and singing.  You could earn money doing this (having read the thread, I realise that do deservedly do!).
Habanero - Life is a Highway - Sounded much better through 'phones, I could appreciate the separation between guitars much better.
fnpt - Love Will Tear - A faithful tribute to the original, except with better vocals!
fnpt - Lucky Man - Brilliant playing again, but I thought your vocals worked better on the first track (and I say that as someone who really struggled with the vocals on his own submission)
Colourbox - Last Goodbye - I've never got into Buckley, something just doesn't "click" for me.  That's some vocal range!!
Idiotwind - Vida Loca - That had me *very* confused until I read your explanation in the other thread!!
mrkb - Laid - instantly recognised this one - this is what happens when you just "chuck something together"??? 

Points;
1st; @colourbox - Like a Stone - really felt some emotion in this track
2nd; @fnpt - Love Will Tear Us Apart - because it's such a faithful re-version and all the parts and mix work so well together
3rd; @flying_pie - Look What You Made Me Do

thecolourbox

Thanks for the votes so far FNPT and TTony, very kind of you. I don't earn money by singing sadly, only for playing solo piano. If I could add some singing gigs I might even be able to go part time with the day job! But sadly nobody wants to hear that haha

I'll do as Ttony has done and list my thoughts for each one before giving my points out. I'll do my own brief liner notes in the next comment as well in case that's interesting.

• Look What You Made Me Do - Flying Pie Enjoyed the energy of this, says a lot about the strength of her songriting that it works so many different ways. Excellent vocals as ever, lovely solo at the end. Thought you'd gone a bit Sparks at the end as well with "look what you made me do" bit

• Lawyers Guns And Money - idiotwind a nice groove on the rhythm guitar part in particular and a nicely thought out arrangement to keep the contrast and variation in there

• Life Is A Highway - habanero Nice work on the guitar tones and groove of the song, sounds energetic and cool.  That’s a lot of words to fit in as well!

• Love Will Tear Us Apart - fnpt Actually think I too prefer this to the original, more up to date production style and your vocals are much clearer and precise. Love it

• Lost Art - TTony Another one I prefer to the original as I don't really like Qotsa very much. I like the percussive acoustic guitar and movement provided by the electric. Well done on the vocals as well. Screaming solo also

• Lucky Man - fnpt Love this, lovely playing and ambience with the electric over the top. Builds up really nicely as it goes through as well

• Livin La Vida Loca - idiotwind Absolutely bonkers, love it. I don't have the imagination to come up with anything like this. Arrangement and playing suits the style really well.

• Laid - mrkb Great fun, nice energy and movement to it, love the feel good vibe to it and the vocals really work

1st Place - @fnpt ; - Love Will Tear Us Apart
2nd Place - @flying_pie ; - Look What You Made Me Do
3rd Place - @TTony - Lost Art of Keeping A Secret

thecolourbox

My liner notes, sorry for flooding this one with 3 entries.

Living On a Prayer
Arranged as background music before my sister's wedding a good while back. Using a very crude orchestra vst instrument but it sounds ok considering. Cant find the original file to add a bit more dynamics or extend it but might try to transcribe it perhaps, maybe.

Like a Stone
Love this song, as indeed I do for many songs that are quite bleak and about death. I'm a cheerful sod as you all know. The lyrics feel like they mean a lot to me but as with Black Hole Sun, I don't really know why, I just like the imagery I suppose. It sounds audacious to say, but a lot of Cornell's songs have a similar octave range to mine although obviously with a very different tone and timbre! It's only when he goes a bit nuts I can't reach that high. Recorded "live" ie piano and voice at the same time, condenser mic on stand over the piano on the landing, piano in stereo via cables. Then usual mix of eq and plugins etc. Hi Tech studio action over here.

Last Goodbye
Buckley is my joint favourite artist ever, and this is one of the few I feel like I can do justice to the whole tune, rather than ones where octave range is just too high or I can't get the right breakup on the voice etc. I mainly also did this one to use my new Classic Vibe tele to be honest (even though he wouldn't have used the Tele for the original). Drums and Bass I input from tabs and messed about with the velocity a little bit. All guitar parts are the Classic Vibe Tele through Helix Native, often 3 or 4 layers of the same recordings just through different levels of gain to try and build a crescendo up. Vocals sat in my office desk area, again the condenser mic, and again mangled up with EQ and plugins as usual

IMC1980

Well done everyone, love how active this challenge is at the moment and props to those of you that are able to get more than one entry in! Anyway, My votes go to:

5 points @thecolourbox (Like A Stone) - Sparse, haunting and beautiful. I would pay money for this.
3 points @flying_pie - I had to listen to the original for reference, what a treatment. Only thing missing was the outro solo fade out
1 point @fnpt (Love Will Tear Us Apart) I do love this song and you did it proud.

Well done to everyone else, I may be entering the next one, but have decided to focus on getting some originals out there over the next month or so. But who knows? My last entry was very quick to come together so never say never.... 

Bezzer

Good evening one and all. Firstly apologies for my absence AGAIN from the challenge, it's just madness round here at the moment. Like @IMC1980 though I'm so pleased to see how full this month is, to see so many people involved and throwing songs into the mix. And so good as well, I don't think there was one I didn't enjoy again! Hopefully I'll be back in the ring soon.

For now though, and it was a REALLY tough call, these are the ones that most pleased my head holes today:

5 points @thecolourbox - Like a Stone : What a fucking splendid arrangement and performance. I loved the vocals on this, so good.
3 points @flying_pie - Look What You Made Me Do - As soon as that Jake E Lee riff kicked in you had me, and a great way to deliver TayTay to the masses! I love the originals of both of these and now really want them to do this for real!
1 point @fnpt - Love Will Tear Us Apart : Brave choice, no one is ever going to match the original (IMHO) but that was a really, really good version. Excellent work.

Well done all though, again. Please keep this challenge alive, its always such a pleasure to listen to even when I can't get involved.

flying_pie

Tough tough tough to narrow it down to just three but here goes...

5 points @thecolourbox for Like A Stone - great song and great cover. Really loved it

3 points @TTony - had a big Pixies vibe to my ears and I really liked that

1 point @idiotwind for Living La Vida Loca - utterly bonkers crazy mashup and right up my alley

So sorry to the others. Really cost and there wasn't anything I didn't like (except Lucky Man because I detest The Verve but it was still well done)

flying_pie

Reminder that votes close tomorrow night and a gentle nudge to @idiotwind @mrkb and @Habanero to give their scores 

Habanero

Another very enjoyable challange with a good range of entries. Interesting that nobody did the QotSA tune or needed the new 'The' rule.

5pts : @thecolourbox (Like A Stone) so good it inspired me to go and buy the original CD

3pts : @fnpt (Lucky Man) really good version of this one

1pts : @idiotwind (Living La Vida Loca) fluctuates between genius and madness

Well done to everyone else, and hopefully see y'all in the 'M' round.

idiotwind

I always find it almost impossible to rank these as they're all so different

5pts: @flying_pie ;
3pts: @thecolourbox (Last Goodbye)
1pt: @TTony ;

thecolourbox

Thank you all for the kind comments, it's very flattering and glad it was enjoyable. it is telling me that I should stick to piano and not guitar though haha

Habanero, TTony did do the official L track! I did nearly thrash out a rough version of it as well, but realised fairly early on in the process of learning the chorus chord sequence that I had basically gone for exactly the same style as Tony had. So I abandoned it as Tony had done it well already!

mrkb

5pts: - @fnpt - Lucky man - great cover of a great track
3pts: - @flying_pie ; - interesting re-interpretation of a track
1pt: - Livin La Vida Loca - @idiotwind ; - whacky!

Habanero

thecolourbox said:

Habanero, TTony did do the official L track! I did nearly thrash out a rough version of it as well, but realised fairly early on in the process of learning the chorus chord sequence that I had basically gone for exactly the same style as Tony had. So I abandoned it as Tony had done it well already!

Well that's embarrassing. My excuse is I was fooled by the shortened version of the title!

TTony

Habanero said:

thecolourbox said:

Habanero, TTony did do the official L track! I did nearly thrash out a rough version of it as well, but realised fairly early on in the process of learning the chorus chord sequence that I had basically gone for exactly the same style as Tony had. So I abandoned it as Tony had done it well already!

Well that's embarrassing. My excuse is I was fooled by the shortened version of the title!

I know what you really mean @Habanero ;


TBH, there were two reasons that I decided to try QOTSA cover; firstly it saved me agonising over a choice of my own, and secondly, I thought it would at least guarantee me 5 points!

Habanero

TTony said:

Habanero said:

thecolourbox said:

Habanero, TTony did do the official L track! I did nearly thrash out a rough version of it as well, but realised fairly early on in the process of learning the chorus chord sequence that I had basically gone for exactly the same style as Tony had. So I abandoned it as Tony had done it well already!

Well that's embarrassing. My excuse is I was fooled by the shortened version of the title!

I know what you really mean @Habanero ;


TBH, there were two reasons that I decided to try QOTSA cover; firstly it saved me agonising over a choice of my own, and secondly, I thought it would at least guarantee me 5 points!

To be even more honest I don't really know QotSA. You could have actually have entered the original as an mp3 and I'd have been none the wiser!

flying_pie

Voting closed