Naked, intimate, slowed-down versions of pop songs

If it is a good take, it's a good take. Bettye LaVette's version of "Love Reign Over Me" is sounds pretty great to me and I would say it is of this ilk.

TBF I didn't listen to the song in the OP. I just feel like the internet is so dripping with these things now -- well-crafted, polished, "sultry" slowed-down versions of pop songs that do exactly what JBR said. It's usually done "well" and rarely in a way that seems worth doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN3Jt8C-F0A

man alive otm. it's rare for a song to be popular enough to do this with but (a) not somehow seen as light/fun/party-oriented/humorous in tone, where the cover must inevitably therefore be a big stupid obvious joke (million threads on this), nor (b) already naked/intimate/slowed-down/ballad-ish, where the cover can only be redundant or an exercise in the singer proclaiming that they do indeed get how sad and meaningful this song is, perhaps more than the original performer. if it's just some regular song and you're revealing, what, that it has a core of sadness in it or that you can read it in a differently-meaning (not necessarily more meaningful) way, that can potentially yield a good performance but the odds against it are very very bad.

i guess i'd make an exception for something like the blow's "come on petunia," which is built around a naked intimate slowed-down "every little thing she does is magic." first of all i like the blow but it doesn't feel like bullshit. in part because it's part of a larger song with its own distinct sound (not just "hi i'm a torch singer, you know, like the old days when the music mattered maaaan") but also because you sorta feel like, i dunno, the character in that song is reaching for the song "every little thing she does is magic" for specific reasons.

moody minimal covers/versions of popular songs created solely to soundtrack movie trailers: an archive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acAKqh51z8

Aztec Camera - Jump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNZvGHUPcg

Does Nirvana count as pop?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS2jQhIvLbM

Lest I forget this classic:

Frente! - Bizarre Love Triangle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ1c9ErCn7w

You're welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfevfOKGrSo

I know people are going to hate this one, but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njuFf1G4Sss

Rickie Lee Jones - Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

lol @ that all star cover fuck that shit

This is a side of Brian Posehn I've never seen.

Duds: that St. Etienne one, that Frente one, countless others....

Classics: Aztec Camera's "Jump".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEk1rp96gZw

Based on what I remember from the Matador BB around the time this ad came out, Chan Marshall only recorded as much of this cover as appears in the commercial. She definitely should've fleshed it out and put it on one of her covers albums.

That Nothing Else Matters on the Heroes Reborn promo is lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHhVydgvuAc

or if you prefer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESmNtanLOc8

i liked this back when it came out, before this thing was such a thing, but listening now it's certainly lost a lot of its shine in the interim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxQ9bvdZgU

i'm not even sure how exactly it's distinguishing itself from the rest of the dreck but the first cat power covers album still really holds up for me

nina simone -vs- red house painters

I'll take RHP any time

Duds: that St. Etienne one

The Neil Young cover? It's considerably louder and faster than the original!

This one is dire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnCmIcLwx6U

Cowboy Junkies remain one of the few to do right by this strategy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4XVJj4jER4

Same idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YthRnraF-s

And of course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3qRVqJmKfo

A cousin to this thread is the trend of taking upbeat songs and turning them slow and evil, a la:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6ixNnsGYdc

Or, I dunno, M. Manson's "Sweet Dreams" cover.

it was all downhill after tainted love/where did our love go. or maybe after jump. jump was cool.

FWIW, I think I'm one of the few people on earth who can't fucking stand Jeff Buckley doing Hallelujah.

DON'T ALL RUSH AT ONCE!!

xpost Well, it's not like the original was upbeat and zippy or anything. Though it is pretty big, for what it is.

tainted love/where did our love go

Yeah, this is an early peak!

Speaking of John Cale (implied), there's this early example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHF7b326ydg

Though I guess this is a rare example of a song that started out naked, intimate and slowed-down and was turned into a scary rock song.

I knew someone in school who used to do a slow acoustic cover of "Freebird," and then when he got to the "Lord knows, I can't change" part he would just keep going until someone got the joke and kicked him off the stage.

lol

I want to come up with the stupidest possible song to do this with and make a youtube video. Maybe "Cotton-Eye Joe"?

i would love to hear cat power do a slow feline crawl through "they're coming to take me away ha-haa!".

Buy Me a Condo by Weird Al

"Smell Yo Dick"

cotton-eye joe would be good though. also "I Eat Cannibals".

"Smell Yo Dick" would be great except it's probably been done as one of those lol-white-people-covering-rap things.

true

maybe

"Earache My Eye"

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=smell+yo+dick+cover

re: cotton eyed joe, ahem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl1T-4tld6U

The epitome of the white people mock hip hop/R&B song: Alanis Morissette - My Humps

The Flying Lizards version of Summertime Blues is my favourite slowed down/stripped down cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9CRGKYXjCA

the enervated Telex cover of Rock Around the Clock is good one where someone is not going for intimate/earnest whatever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XGXHDMIJw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPclCrqOFic

I guess there are lots of bonus demo tracks on reissued albums that function as unofficial versions of this type of cover?

I want to come up with the stupidest possible song to do this with and make a youtube video.

La Macarena?

The epitome of the white people mock hip hop/R&B song: Alanis Morissette - My Humps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gqhobdcYUE

^(In defense, this was by request, for charity)

Tori Amos has a lot of these.

Heavy Vegetable covering The Rez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1XT0TOAboA

surprised this hasn't been here yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsC_SARyPzk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05gsorRstTs

i was watching this sad movie starring Happy Gilmore about white people who are sad because they have cell phones and because they masturbate too much and they played this really groovy and dreamy cover of "I Feel Love" and I really liked it! don't know who it was by though. the movie was like American Beauty 2.0. and the song would not have been out of place in Donnie Darko II - The Darkening.

okay, I found it. don't know the band. I think it's really pretty!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DomLXOiLRCY

that's awesome!

Cat Power, when she sings:

"Then suddenly I got that old time feeling
I can't help it if I'm still in love with you." - from "still in love"

or

"can't you see, I'm on a losing streak..." - from "satisfaction"

Really liking this Bedhead cover of "Disorder," partly because I love the song so much, partly because this is such a perfect distillation of the sound of every show I went to in 1995 and 1996. Now I want to hear Vehicle Flips cover "Warsaw."

Fountains of Wayne's slow version of "Baby One More Time" is exactly what this thread consensus-hates and yet I feel deep affection for it. Maybe because, instead of the usual "acoustic singer-songwriter" goof, they play it as a pop song, just a different kind of pop song. The organ!

https://youtu.be/C6g4t93uuus

Crap, let me try that again?

https://youtu.be/C6g4t93uuus

the slowcore bands were best at this. bedhead, RHP, Low. did Codeine ever do any good covers?

Forget it, eephus, it's YouTubeTown.

This Mortal Coil still kinda my gold standard after all these years. though they didn't exactly do "pop" covers.

i was totally listening to fountains of wayne last night. they sounded great. i gave the cd to cyrus. he's been playing the same damn green day cd for weeks at bedtime. thought he could switch things up a bit.

did Codeine ever do any good covers?

They did a cover of Atmosphere for the Joy Division tribute album, but the original wasn't particularly upbeat to begin with.

Nice, torchy jazz-lounge interpretation of what I'd never guess started life as a KISS disco-metal hit if I didn't know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8KdInR0z5U

RHP did a good Kiss cover too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixwyr4NSHLI

did i hear a slowed down version of the pixies' Where Is My Mind? on a facebook advert?

(yes - http://jettemplates.com/video-detail.php?videoid=4NZdggNUvq0&title=Maxence-Cyrin---Where-Is-My-Mind-%28The-Pixies-Piano-Cover%29 )

I'm sticking with Animotion's version.

Karen O / Obsession:

https://youtu.be/g4n_VpzBQIA

Hmmm, maybe this will work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4n_VpzBQIA

Norma Winstone - Live to Tell (Madonna cover)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTkO9t2MR2s

really feeling this, even though it doesn't take much imagination to turn a somber pop ballad into a slightly more somber jazz ballad

https://soundcloud.com/alvin-thechipmunkson16sp

Was going to say I detest when artists fall back on this move, like they're the first people to ever think of it, but I actually like some of the versions posted here. Not this though, this is garbage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8asRWe5XNw8

there was a particularly bad episode of The Leftovers recently where one scene ended with a ghost ominously singing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" and the next scene was scored with a slow gloomy cover of "You're The One That I Want" from Grease

What are the categories for these covers?
- Sexy ("Whatever You Like" "Crazy in Love")
- Mournful ("Satisfaction")
- Pretty ("Sweet Jane")
- Strung Out
- Heavy

just heard a naked, intimate version of 'i wanna be sedated', covered by esthero. :/

*is already sedated*

*woozy morricone guitar & strings*
*muffled breakbeat*

lana del rey, singing:

"when you're sliding in to fiiirst, and you're feeling something buuurst..."

Madder Rose did one of my favorites in this genre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHrg2_cmgvc

Also, belated lol at "sliding into first..." just registered with me.

lol goole

yeah that madder rose cover is nice. The original is so frenzied, so slowing it down actually reveals something new.

goole i need to hear that immediately

bedhead were mentioned a couple times upthread. their cover, with macha, of cher's "believe" is my ur-NISVOPS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYkrY9yxC0

it's important that it arrived during the height of the napster era, when music blogs were coming into their own, as this sort of thing is so emblematic of the internet era. and i can't think of a clearer example of "indie" artists subversively reinterpreting a "mainstream" pop song to expose something (supposedly) hidden within. that implied underground vs. overground narrative seems a bit archaic now.

^ which puts it at the intersection of old and new modes. appropriate, i suppose, for a song released in y2k.

with that subversive meaning gone, the practice has taken on a schlocky, talent show sort of quality.

That ILX dude's cover of GG Allin's "I Kill Everything I Fuck" was the best example of this.

heh I thought of that also

"I'm really, really bed"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Rt2x6kPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3S6hXmX1UY

Because obviously Daniel Johnston needed this treatment.

https://youtu.be/_d3DkoA1LUk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A3SxNtbPu2I

Hmm well posting the url was supposed to work. Version of The Stallion Pt. 3 which I like.

this stuff is insufferable and by now past the point of saturation. if it isn't a superhero movie with a slowed down Leonard Cohen song it's a new TV show with a Pixies cover or something. it's like the sincere form of muzak.

you're nothing these days without a quavery voice and a ukulele

Every time a white girl does an acoustic version of a trap song, a rapper has to do this 😭 pic.twitter.com/QboULucNiw

— i know dennis 🇳🇬 (@shOoObz) March 9, 2018