# Cross-Genre Covers



## Wumbo (Jun 29, 2010)

You may be familiar with Jacques Loussier's jazz versions of Bach's works. They're pretty good. You may have heard of many others. You may have even seen pop/rock songs turned into Classical style music.

Usually when a pop song gets turned into a Classical style piece, you will see many comments on youtube of people saying "this is so beautiful" and it feels a little unwarranted. This is what I think, anyway. Just because there are violins it's better? Tallywood String Quartet is a gimmick, and while it's fun to listen to them sometimes, I wouldn't call them beautiful.

But here's something that took me off guard. I listened to the album 1996 by Ryuichi Sakamoto and loved it. I thought he was just some modern Classical composer, so I went in search of more of his work... And what I found were pop songs. Pop versions of the classical songs I'd heard. The original versions of the songs I'd heard. Forgive me for saying it, but in comparison they are pretty trashy. It seems bizarre that something so beautiful could come out of something so cliche. I feel embarrassed, as if I've become that 15 year old girl who thinks the string quartet version of a metal band is tear jerking.

So do me this favour. Listen to the first link, then listen to the second. In that order. Tell me honestly if you are surprised.











The first link seems to have a lot more depth... Or maybe the drone of the beats in the second one is drowning out everything that is underneath... This is by no means the only example of a good piece on 1996 either... The whole album is pretty amazing. I was so disappointed when I found out it was cover, and he didn't do these initially... Or that he doesn't make more of this music. It has quite nice dynamics.

EDIT: I don't put this in the non-classical forum because the discussion is based on the classical version of this piece... The non-classical forum, as I see it, is just a forum for discussion that has nothing to do with classical (duh?)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The first "classical" one sounded quite minimalistic, the second one was just pure pop...


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I'm sorry. Neither version did much for me. Okay, the first link is performed with a little more feeling and is not quite as mechanical, but I think it has much more to do with the performance than with what instruments are used. I can think of plenty of pop / rock songs performed with more depth and feeling than the first link however.


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## karenpat (Jan 16, 2009)

at the risk of making myself unpopular, I think the second link was more catchy, even though the pop formula wasn't that original in itself. For me the first link didn't really sound like jazz but maybe like something from a film score.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

This is the original vocal version, one of my all-time favourite songs:




The singer is David Sylvian.
(from the movie Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence)


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## Wumbo (Jun 29, 2010)

Thanks for that Art Rock. I like that version too.

I kind of expected this kind of response haha... THE INTERNET. Oh well.


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