The two songs that I’ve chosen for this blog are, Want You Back by 5 Seconds of Summer and Pick Up the Phone by Travis Scott. 5 Seconds of Summer is an Australian pop rock band that consists of 4 members. Travis Scott, also known as Jacques is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. The song Want You Back displays the artists yearning for their lost love. Throughout the song the lyrics show the artist’s regrets, “where I went wrong” and “I will never get over you.” Pick up the Phone on the other hand talks about the frustration the artists goes through when their girlfriend ignores their phone calling. The lyrics throughout the song displays the artist’s clear frustration, “blowin a bag on you, do all that for no reason.”  Want You Back starts out with a rather slow tempo that gradually becomes faster starting from 0:31-0:42. Pick up the Phone on the other hand stays at a similar tempo throughout the entire song. Want You Back also features a much softer timbre than Pick up the Phone does seeing that both songs display different emotions. Pick up the Phone displays a much sharper timbre doing a good job of showing the artist’s bitterness. The performance of Want you Back takes place in a black stage with blue soft white lights. It creates a somewhat sad but romantic setting which reflects on the song. The performance for Pick up the phone on the other hand takes place on a red stage with flickering lights on the back and props that light on fire. This setting sets a very aggressive tone which also reflects on the song.

The song “The Man Who Sold The World” is a song originally written by David Bowie and was released in November 1970 in the United Kingdom and April 1971 in the United States. He had written the song when he was 19 years old. It was released as the title track of Bowie’s third studio Album with the same name of the track. Since its release, many bands and artists have made a cover of the song and it is sometimes performed at live concerts. According to secondhandsongs.com, this song in particular has over 121 versions that have been made within the years between 1970 and 2022. Some of the artists that made their own take on the song include but are not limited to: Midgre Ure in 1982, Simple Minds in 2001, Marcus Van Heller in 2007, and Nirvana in 1994.

From the many versions and performances that have been made of this song, there is one performance that I enjoy the most. Nirvana had a live presentation on Mtv called “MTV Unplugged” which took place in New York City in 1994. The show lasted for 45 minutes and Nirvana performed a lot of their hit songs such as “About a girl”, and “Come As You Are”. However, they also performed “The Man Who Sold The World” as part of their presentation. Kurt Cobain sang this song a couple times before this at other live shows. But this one was well known because it repeated numerous times on the MTV channel following Cobain’s Death.

The song itself is very short, containing the first verse which is followed by the chorus, second verse and then the chorus is repeated at the end. The lyrics of the song seem to be very dark, talking about death and uncertainty. Even so, the song is known for being soft and mellow. A similarity between performances of Nirvana and David is that they keep the lyrics the same. The lyrics don’t change in Nirvana’s rendition, which makes sense because it is only a cover of the song. Another similarity is you can hear both the drums and acoustic guitar. In the David Bowie performance, you can see people in the back playing these instruments while Bowie sings. Similarly in the show by Nirvana, you can see Kurt Cobain playing the guitar while delivering these beautiful vocals. There are also some differences between the two versions. In David Bowie’s performance, the tempo is quicker and fast paced while the one by Nirvana is slower and can almost be seen as a ballad. Although Nirvana is known for there more intense rock songs, this one was always performed with soft vocals and nice sounding guitar strokes. The drastic difference between Nirvana’s usual songs could be the reason this performance is more known than others.

“Hound Dog was written by 2 Jewish composers, Leiber and Stoller. Big Mama Thorton was an American R&B singer and songwriter. In 1952 she was the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog”, which became her biggest hit. Elvis Presley is a more well-known name and therefore when he covered “Hound Dog” in 1956, it became a worldwide hit. Elvis Presley was an American singer and was even said to be the “King of Rock and Roll”. “Hound Dog” originally was not “rock & roll”, it was “blues”. It’s originally meant to show female rage at a man who played her. 

However, Elvis’ cover diluted the meaning of the song. Big Mama Thorton was singing to a man, while Elvis was singing to a dog. He didn’t use the original lyrics, he chose to use the “Freddie and The Bell Boys” version of the lyrics.

In Big Mama Thorton’s version, she sang it with a screaming blues intensity. She sings it slower like in 0:23-0:27 when she sings “You told me you was high class”. 

Elvis however sang it at a faster tempo and added different instruments like the drums. Like in 0:16-0:20 you hear the powerful drums and Elvis saying “Well they said you were high class” really fast. With Elvis’ version, you can dance more and faster to it. It doesn’t have the anger that the original Big Mama’s version has. They are similar because they have similar lyrics and they both use guitar in their versions. They are different because the tempo is different, Elvis’ version has more instruments, and the meanings of the versions are different.

on today blog, I will be choosing Ye by burnt boy, and then later on performed by Koffee on 1xbet. burns boy is a Nigerian artist known very we’ll on the international soil all around the globe. he has been releasing hit, but his popularity grew more the he wan a grammy. on the other hand, Koffee is a Jamaica artist who is also well known of the international level of music. she a young girl and a fan of burnt boy and his importation of different dialect of English into his music.

the song “ye” by burns boy can be classify as a social song that talks about the negative part of people around the world specifically in Nigeria have to face. the inspiration of this song was about internet criticism, political suffering, bad government, high rate poverty in Nigeria which is the place burns boy was born as he was born into not too much successful family himself.

altho the lyrics for both performance are exactly the same, but still somethings change in the audio. burna boy uses a baritone to create his original ye piece, while Koffee uses mezzo-soprano in her performance. there are also use of jazz set in koffee version of ye while burna boy only make use of electronic instruments. the setting of Koffee being a live performance change the mood of the song because the instrument create a rocky mood where people just want to show their energy. Overall, the Tiempo of the live performance is faster than the original “ye” song by Burns Boy

Gnarls Barkley is an American soul duo of CeeLo Green and Danger Mouse. They debuted with their studio album “St. Elsewhere” in 2006 that contained the single that I’m using, “Crazy.” Melanie Martinez performed this song on the Voice in 2012. She later released her debut EP “Dollhouse” in 2014. She is most well known for releasing music in the alternative pop genre.

The song “Crazy” is about being isolated from society and being aware of your own emotions. It follows the story of him losing his mind and reminiscing about that time. He encourages others to become aware and to take control of their lives instead of being influenced by others.

The tempo of the songs are different. The original is faster than Melanie’s cover. The instrumentation is also different. For example, I believe there is a violin in the original chorus while the cover features a guitar (0:35 in the original and 0:55 in the cover). The dynamics are pretty similar as in their voice gets louder during the chorus. Their voices have different timbre. CeeLo Green’s voice is raspy throughout the song while Melanie Martinez’s voice is smoother. They are both homophonies. Their voice is the melodic line that has chords accompanying them. They have the same lyrics.

CeeLo Green’s version is very funky and it makes you want to dance and sing along because it has a fast tempo and the instruments that are being used. His voice during the chorus brings out a frantic emotion when he is asking “Does that make me crazy?”. Melanie Martinez’s version, on the other hand, makes the story stand out as it is paced more slowly. The build up is greater because it starts off with little instrumentation and picks up around the second verse. It also sounds like there is a music box playing in her version which makes it feel a bit unsettling.

You Really Got Me is a song that was recorded and released by The Kinks in 1964. It was rerecorded and released by Van Halen in 1978 on their debut album and as their first single. The song themed around love and sex with a girl, as per the lyrics, “I said girl, you really got me now, you got me so I don’t know what I’m doin’. Yeah, you really got me now, you got me so I can’t sleep at night”. It has a very fast tempo, with there only being two chords throughout the song. Both versions have vocalists that harmonize on the chorus. Other than the different years are people recording the songs, the other differences are the way the song was recorded and the guitar solos, which are extremely different.

The Kinks version was recorded with much older equipment then the Van Halen version, as distortion didn’t exist. Ray Davies cut the speaker in his amplifier to get the distortion that you hear in every guitar today. Van Halen had many of the recording technology and other tools the Kinks did not have back then, making their recording more crisp then The Kinks. Another thing is the guitar solos. Ray Davies was using the standard blues scale, and although a good guitar player, was not known for his technical ability. Eddie Van Halen, considered by many to be the greatest guitar player to have lived, plays a mind blowing solo that uses many techniques everyone after him copied, like tapping.

We all know who michael jackson is, but we may not know that he stemmed from the Jackson 5 before reaching his popular stardom we know him for as today. When Michael Jackson was a child, he performed “ABC” alongside the Jackson 5 in 1970 by being the lead singer and introduced this song on live television. Another performance by the same song comes from a show named “Glee” on netflix. This show is about how a new musical group in high school rose to fame by performing various famously known songs, “ABC” by The Jackson 5 being one of them. They performed “ABC” by The Jackson 5 because it is a known song so they use that to their advantage against their competitors. 

In the song, the song represents how love between one another can be calm and easy, referencing it as easy as spelling ABC or 123. Throughout the song, we have an upbeat, happy song, but we can feel the romance sprinkled into the song. First performed in 1970, we hear many key differences in the song to other performances today besides quality improvement over 40 years. Throughout the decades, the tempo of the song has remained the same, steady and upbeat. Glee’s performance of “ABC” has many similarities to the original version, from the scale to even how they form the song using the Verse-Chorus form. However, Glees performance had many more performers and so everyone sang a small part of the song, there was no main singer as for they all were singing along the lyrics together. Also, Glee performed the song in front of an audience full of people plus their competition, therefore they had to make the song get people jumping up with their choreography performance, which the Jackson 5 did not originally do. Also, in 1970, the Jackson 5 was introducing their song to the world, so they wanted to make it sound as appealing as it could be. The circumstances of the performance made the song different to which era it was heard in.

The song that I chose to compare, and contrast is “Can’t help falling in love” by Elvis Presley, and cover by Haley Reinhart. This song was first sung by Elvis Presley in 1961. Elvis was a predominantly rock singer, who infused country western music into his songs. On the other hand, Haley Reinhart is mostly known for her pop music, and she also sings many cover songs from previous decades. The song “Can’t help falling in love” portrays a romantic story about love and how it’s hard to stay away from someone whom you’re in love with. This song is packed with feelings of love and the frustration of staying away from someone. This song also portrays the idea of if something is meant for you it will come to you and the inevitableness of meeting your soulmate. When the song was sung by Elvis, the tempo was andante. I say this because the tempo sounds like a steady walk like pace. The dynamic of the lyrics was sung a little loud, but the background music itself was mezzo piano. In the cover by Haley Reinhart, the tempo was adagio. The tempo was fairly slower than the original and sounded like a piano. Although the lyrics were the same, I definitely think that the original was much more active in terms of how it was sung. Haleys way of singing the song was much softer than Elvis. The background music in the original was steadier than the cover. The covers background tempo was much slower.

The selected song is 天ノ弱(Amaojaku) by 164, a Japanese musician who is good at producing rock and VOCALOID music. This song is about a cowardly girl who chooses to escape again and again when she treats the coming of love. She obviously likes him very much but she speaks the opposite again and again. In the face of the boy’s affection, the girl felt at a loss, she still couldn’t speak her heart out. However, time waits for no one,the boy who love her has not been get a response. Until the boy met a new love, then the girl remembered the past, only to find how much they like this person, and sing this regret and sad song.

The story is sad, but the rock style of the whole song makes the mood of the whole song change. In this version, the girl seems to have gotten over the incident, as if she were telling a story that happened a long time ago. But in my opinion, this song is just like the girl in the story, singing this song easily and happily, but the heart is very sad, covering the sadness with rock and roll. This version focuses on the girl’s regret for not speaking her mind. Say “I’m a bron coward” out loud to express the emotion of the regret. The style of this version is rock and roll, so the song rhythm is very fast. In 2:26, the burst of emotion culminates with the electric guitar.

Akie, a Chinese online female singer, rearranged the song to make a piano version of 天ノ弱 , changing the previous electronic rock style. This version is very lyrical, the lyrics and melody do not change, this version pays more attention to the loss and sadness that cannot be confessed, the song speed is very slow, just like a young girl in the pain that cannot confess herself. I like the performance from 2:59-3:26 very much. The simple piano chords in the background and the gentle and slow singing of the female voice show the despair and sadness of the girl watching the boy leave her most vividly, and then she says to herself: “You are a born coward”. I think this is the unique charm of piano. this two versions of the songs are really difference, electric guitar and the piano play completely different emotions, and in my opinion they even change the context of the phrase “I’m a bron coward”.