Friday Free For All: Must-Hear Covers of Neil Young and Billy Joel
On the surface, the work of Neil Young would appear to have little in common with today’s electronic music (leaving aside the fact that Neil Young did record an electronic…
By Travis Holcombe • • 1 min readOn the surface, the work of Neil Young would appear to have little in common with today’s electronic music (leaving aside the fact that Neil Young did record an electronic album in 1982 called “Trans” that is well worth seeking out) and yet the past couple of years we’ve seen his work covered brilliantly by contemporary groups like Poolside and Chromatics, proving once again that great music transcends all boundaries.
Joakim is the latest artist to rework Young with his cover of “On The Beach“, the first single from the eclectic French producer’s forthcoming full length, “Tropics Of Love“.
Joakim’s version stays faithful to the original but, with his vocoded vocals, he manages to make Young’s already morose reflection on the downside of fame feel ever darker and more distant.
I think I’ve written more about Misun on this blog than any other group, but their work is always fantastic (and usually free) so why not?
Their latest offering is a cover of Billy Joel’s “All For Leyna”.
I’m not super familiar with Billy Joel’s work (although I do love me some “Stiletto” …and of course – “We Didn’t Start The Fire“…you know you secretly like it, too!) but I’m pretty sure “All For Leyna” qualifies as a deep Billy Joel cut, which means most of us who haven’t spent time living in or around Long Island have never heard it before.
Misun completely transform Joel’s original with some club-ready drums and tasteful layers of synths and make it all their own. The result is one of Misun’s biggest sounding tracks yet.
You can check out Misun performing live at the Echoplex this Saturday, March 22nd as part of the SXSW Post-Party along with another one of my local favorites, Kauf.
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Travis Holcombe