One of my more recent music adventures has been checking out neo-soul singer Bilal's small, but intriguing catalog of music. His sound is similar to D'Angelo, but oddly much less commercially successful, and less well known except to those of us who cannot get enough of that Philly soul sound.
The beauty of the web from a music lover's standpoint is that once you start digging into your faves, you "can" be instantly connected to a world of musical genius that you would probably hear on the radio next week may have otherwise never known about.
(I say "can" because I think a majority of people simply go to iTunes or Amazon or whatever, and download the stuff they heard on the radio or in some iPod commercial. A little bit of effort + Google/Myspace = really cool finds)
Today's Example: Many of my music buddies are really REALLY into Radiohead. While I've never really put the time into listening to their music, I've always liked the songs that I hear in passing. One of these enjoyable tunes is "High and Dry" which I feel like most people would know.
I know I'm not breaking any news here, this is a solid tune.
Ha, but THEN, I ran across a Bilal cut by producer and keyboardist Pete Kuzma who has had his fingers in a TON of cool stuff, including being Jill Scott's tour MD. (Pete pretty much blasted to the top of my research & listen list so be looking for more content on him). Check out Bilal's interpretation of the same Radiohead hit.
I shouldn't need to tell you that well done covers are cool, and this is one of them. (Do I hear a little Thom Yorke in the way Bilal sings this? Yes, yes I do.)
* - I also feel like I shouldn't need to tell you that a good cover song speaks VOLUMES to the quality of the original song and songwriter. I felt as though I didn't give Radiohead enough props -
No comments:
Post a Comment