Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates

The Bird and The Bee has raised the bar of 80's concept tribute albums. That's right, they went and made that Hall & Oates tribute album that you've been talking about doing for the past 10 years. I know you had the idea first, but it's no use crying about it now. You couldn't get it done and they could so please just enjoy it -- 8 Hall & Oates cover songs and 1 original song, Heard it On the Radio.

We'll start with perhaps the best known, if not the best loved, Hall & Oates song, Maneater. Shirley Manson of Garbage provides backing vocals.
The Bird & The Bee - Maneater by k7fm

The original, for comparison:
Daryl Hall & John Oates - The Very Best Of Daryl Hall & John Oates - 11 - Maneater by megatronskunkfartbong

A faithful reproduction that doesn't stray too far from the original's soft-pop source material. Certainly better than you could have done. Suck it up.

Hall & Oates' She's Gone strays so far from their typical soft-pop formula into R&B territory that it's almost difficult to hear them on this track:

Daryl Hall and John Oates - She's Gone by musicfromthebook

The Bird and The Bee's take is decidedly less R&B and more electronic-lounge -- closer to the sound that they themselves are known for.

The Bird And The Bee - She's Gone by user8770901

Interestingly, they cut the original's 5:17 length down by almost half to 2:55. An improvement, in my book.

I'll leave you with a live performance of my personal favorite, Sarah Smile. I loved the original song when I was growing up and they do a great job with it here. This version is recorded in what looks like a coffee shop performance and is just Inara on vocals and Greg on keyboards.

I guess he's an Xbox and I'm more Atari.

Ah, Cee-lo. My brain had just recently stopped playing Crazy on repeat and along comes another nasal-toned ear worm that my brain will undoubtedly choose to loop ad infinitum until I'm reduced to shouting "DREIDEL DREIDEL DREIDEL I MADE YOU OUT OF CLAY!" in a vain attempt to drown out my internal soundtrack. Take a listen:

Fuck You - Cee-Lo by DJ Shylock

Ok, clearly very catchy, right? Now you may wonder, as I did, how Mr. Lo is going to get this gem played on the radio -- what with the blatant vulgarity and all. Bleeping? Maybe. It's not like he would compromise his artistic vision by changing his work to something more palatable to the FCC. Cee-lo, bowdlerize? No way!
Then this happened:

Cee Lo Green - Forget You (Clean) by MMMusic

Then this happened!



Yeah. The line "What would you know about Cee-lo? You're like 40. Yeah, Top 40, sweet cheeks" was just used. Remind me again why I should watch this show?

Fortunately a song this catchy is also just begging to be mashed up and remixed and the internet has not dissapointed. Here is nice little mashup by DJTOPCAT with The Four Tops' Same Old Song to get you started:

The Four Tops vs Cee-Lo Green-Same old F.U. you song-127bpm (master) by DJTOPCAT

Buy Cee Lo's album The Lady Killer now - Amazon

Old blog, new trick.

Hey, check it out! Embedded music!

The Bees - I Really Need Love by Polydor Records

The Bees - I really need love.

The Bees make throwback 60's style americana so good that it's hard to believe they are from the UK. Or, rather, incredibly easy to believe, considering that the preponderance of bands they pay homage to probably came from the UK. Consider also the recent phenomenon (yes I said it, phenomenon) of Mumford & Sons. A UK band that sounds like they just hiked in from Appalachia with their banjo and floor tom strapped to their backs. Wait, do they have a banjo? They definitely have a floor tom. Or is it a bass drum? I digress. This band sounds good in my ears and they express a sentiment here that I think we can all agree with. I have included for your enjoyment a youtube video of a song off of their recent album "Every Step's a Yes". It will be videos for now, until I can figure out the best way to embed songs. Buy the album here - A Band of Bees - Every Step's a Yes (Amazon)

Oh yeah, they're called A Band of Bees in the US. Why? I don't know.

The blog is dead. Long live the blog!

To my great surprise, the blog I created during my second year of medical school was still lurking in my blogger account. The title I came up with at that time, The Fretboard Review Series, which I'm sure at the time I thought was very clever, was a pun on a series of books aimed at the overburdened 2nd year medical student called "Board Review Series" or affectionately (or what have you) known as BRS. Granted, a small audience for a not terribly clever pun. Fortunately, blogger was prescient or providence was kind when it suggested the shortened form of Fretboard Review for my URL way back when I registered the blog. A much better name, I think. So here it is, my new blog, same as the old blog.

Anyway, the purpose of this is mostly just to get some practice at writing and to share some music and musings. A while back I read Outliers and the message that I took away was that expecting to be good at something by throwing little packets of time at it every few weeks, months, or years, getting frustrated, and giving up, doesn't work. How does one get to Carnegie hall? Practice, practice, practice. How does one become a good writer? You get the idea.

So I will write, and review some music, because I listen to music and I have opinions about it and hopefully that will provide some fodder. Let's see how this goes.