Sixpence None the Richer cover DDIO

This should be interesting. This could go either way. Their first single (kiss me) was a massive worldwide hit (including being #1 here in Australia), but I don't think their follow-up single (The La's cover - there she goes) had the commercial success the band would have hoped for. I can't get the link to work, but I'd like the song to get popular - even if Neil Finn is only mentioned a couple of times in interviews. If it is popular, watch Recurring Dream make its way right back up the Australian charts (as it's done many a time before!)

I thought it was a little ho hum, nothing startling. I'm not much of fan of the singers voice to start with so I thought it was interesting the review on the same page the song clip is on suggested her voice suited the song more than Neil Finn's did.

BTW it sounded to me like she sang "there's a hole in the woof" instead of roof, which is kinda quirky. Anyone else notice this?

Eeeww. Great song of course, but did they find that vocalist in a Care Bears cartoon? I never heard anybody sound so buzzy and bubble-gummy.

Completely loses the mood of the original

yeah.

on the bright side, it makes it likely that more people will hear the original and like it better.

quote:

Originally posted by Gemini:
[qb]I thought it was a little ho hum, nothing startling. I'm not much of fan of the singers voice to start with so I thought it was interesting the review on the same page the song clip is on suggested her voice suited the song more than Neil Finn's did. [/qb]

More suited to DDIO than Neil. Some reviewer needs a head examination.

This version is possibly one of the worst CH covers ever.
Yucko!

Although the cover may not be up to our standards, i visited their official site:
http://www.sixpence-ntr.com

and you can listen to the new album in its entirety online for free! It's a shame you can't buy their records in Australia, this one's really nice. I'm really liking "Tension is a passing note". Have a listen and tell me what you think.

quote:

Originally posted by Arlington:
[qb]...It's a shame you can't buy their records in Australia...[/qb]

As far as I know, both their album (I think it was self-titled) & 2 singles were available in Australia ( I bought both singles! ), plus the album got reissued because the first issue wasn't split into tracks (like an audio cassette - you have to fast forward to where you want to go)... & also, their front cover art was actually on the back of the CD case (If you get what I mean)

...unless you're talking about their new album - I'm not sure about an Australian release for that.

It's a commercial for freakin' high-fiber cereal!

I'm in the minority who actually LIKE the Jesse Cook FAYF cover, but I'd sooner hear John Tesh cover DDIO than this milquetoast, soul-less fluff-fest.

Don't get me wrong. If people will use this as a stepping-stone to get re-acquainted with the original, that's a good thing. But on its own musical merits.... BLEAH!

I h8 it! What have they done to a beautiful song!
I think this is a tie with peter andre's crap version of "Message To My Girl". Not good at all.
And worst of all someone will think they wrote the song. (even if it says that neil did in the credits or whatever) grrrrr! I really don'y like it.

CNN has a full article on the bands activities, and even some words about Neil and Crowded House.

quote:

One throwback on the album is a cover of Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over," which the band performs in a version faithful to the original, though Nash's ethereal vocals are inevitably brighter than Neil Finn's yearning, tender delivery.

The band recorded it at the behest of the label, Nash says, but didn't mind. "We love Neil Finn," she says. "We love to play other people's songs."

You can read the full article here.

Listening to it now, not enjoying it. Fair play to them for having a go but it totally lacks the emotional depth of the original.

Crowded House will always be hard to cover because they were so original and Neil's voice so gorgeous. I suppose we're all jused biased.

I haven't heard the cover yet, but I can definitely say that the "yearning, tender delivery" that Nash(?) refers to is what makes this song so fabulous. Why wold anyone want it to have bright sounding lyrics???

The way Neil delivers this song is why I was so turned onto CH the first time I heard it. I agree with Potter, the SP version must lack the emotional depth of the CH version. Pitty.

Oh my. I heard it last night and it's definitely LAME. They could have done a better job with it, for sure. Pity... I kind of liked their song "Kiss Me," although even that sounds like a spiritually diluted version of Bic Runga...

Fair enough. I can accept your majority very negative opinions Frenz. But IMHHO we should be encouraging MORE artists to cover Finn songs -as if 2 give them more exposure. Personally I would take it as a compliment if any1 covered my song, no matter who or what genre artist does it.

Remember these/any artists spend their whole life working hard on their craft. Any thing that is mass produced - SNTR, Britney Spears, Bardot, Popstars, Scandulus, Nikki Webster etc et al has some redeemable quality about it OTHERWISE why would they go to the tedious, money risky investment trouble of packaging, marketing and manufacturing the CD / art product in the 1st place?

Yes. w.c.i.b.n. - I always look forward to someone covering one of Neil's songs, even if it does turn out to be crap. It's just good to have, plus to hear how it's interpreted.

quote:

Originally posted by who.can.it.be.now:
[qb]Remember these/any artists spend their whole life working hard on their craft. Any thing that is mass produced - SNTR, Britney Spears, Bardot, Popstars, Scandulus, Nikki Webster etc et al has some redeemable quality about it
[/qb]

Apart from Sixpence NTR, none of that crap (Scandal'us, Nikki Webster, Bardot, Britney Spears) has "some redeemable quality about it! No, that's NOT just in my opinion .

quote:

Originally posted by who.can.it.be.now:
[qb]...OTHERWISE why would they go to the tedious, money risky investment trouble of packaging, marketing and manufacturing the CD / art product in the 1st place? [/qb]

It's called brainwashing people. They know the kids who follow the charts will buy this crap; so market it especially for it, plus it's not the frickin' public faces of the group who do all the marketing & promotion, it's the promoters & marketers. Also, there's no "tedious, money risky investment trouble" about it. It's all planned beforehand - so they know if the right amount of promotion / brainwashing is done... then it will enter the pop charts. Just shows you what a corrupt record industry we have (all countries included ).

Getting back to the point of this topic... *ahem*

Anyone else remember the mid-nineties Australian group, Frente?

This cover by SNTR, sounds a lot to me like if Frente had covered DDIO...

except that Angie Hart was occasionally capable of injecting some pathos into her delivery, pathos which is notably absent in this singer's rendition.

quote:

Originally posted by kia kaha:
[qb]Anyone else remember the mid-nineties Australian group, Frente?

This cover by SNTR, sounds a lot to me like if Frente had covered DDIO...
[/qb]

Yes, Frente! (note the "!"). Accidently Kelly Street where frenz..."... anyway . Great band. I urge everyone to check out their obscure cover of New Order's bizzare love triangle - classic (? ) stuff!

Sorry about getting off-topic before, but w.c.i.b.n. starterd it . Hopefully this post isn't too irrelevant either... .

The cover of DDIO is getting a lot of exposure these days.

I happened to catch the series Smallville last night, and they played about 2 minutes of the cover version of DDIO to close the show. I think Warner Bros. is including it on a Smallville soundtrack cd too.

Also, commercials for the movie 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' have been airing constantly (featuring the cover).

They replay Smallville on Sunday's if anyone wants to catch the song.

Last week I heard a DDIO cover by some Hawaiian band called "Natural Vibrations", it sounds quite different, to say the least

Egads, I remember Frente! I was having a chat with Rick from Lifehouse about Angie Hart during an interview I did with him last year. I like her style of singing...much like Paul Kelly she keeps her Australian accent in her vocals, but still keeps it all sweet and bubbly. Accidentally Kelly Street and their cover of Bizarre Love Triangle are great tracks but what really blew me away was their debut song Ordinary Angels.

Anyway, I digress. I think the best cover of a CH song that i've heard has to be the rendition of Pineapple Head by Natalie Imbruglia. She sings it with tremendous passion and enthusiasm, whereas in Sixpence's cover of Don't Dream It's Over it's painfully apparent that there's no feeling in it. They're singing somebody else's words and they know it, so in their guilt they're putting in a poor performance.

BUT, let's look on the bright side - some fans from the 80's will remember the song and rekindle their appreciation for Crowded House, or even better...the band will gain some new fans from the younger generation.

*takes off her Catty Music Journo hat*

I agree....it should turn some people on to CH. The first time I heard the cover, I was completely turned off. But as I hear it more and more (now in rotation here in NYC area) I find myself singing along to a what is in any form a great and powerful song.

quote:

Originally posted by Toet:
[qb]Last week I heard a DDIO cover by some Hawaiian band called "Natural Vibrations", it sounds quite different, to say the least [/qb]

That sounds interesting... do they have a website/record/is there any other way to hear this song?????

quote:

Originally posted by kia kaha:
[qb]That sounds interesting... do they have a website/record/is there any other way to hear this song?????[/qb]

http://www.naturalvibrations.com/

This seems to be their official site. As for the song, I'm afraid there's no (legal) way to take a listen to it on the net. But you're not really missing out on something good

you're right. It's always very difficult to cover a CH song. Sixpence None The Richer cover is not bad . I like the bridge. But I'd like to hear Neil's voice.
Anyway, it's a good opportunity for young people to discover CH songs.
A few years ago, Margaret Urlich covered DDIO too. I don't know where I can listen it.

I dislike the Sixpence cover, though I've been hearing it a lot lately. I can't tell if it's because I just don't happen to like their singer's voice or because something in my head is going "Wrong! Wrong! WRONG!" when I hear someone other than Neil singing... I am consoled slightly by the fact that Neil should be receiving songwriting mechanicals whenever it's played.

Sadly, I have to agree with the majority of the posts here and give "The Helium Version" of DDIO a big two thumbs down. It is getting a great deal of airplay here in Ontario and is very popular with the teenybopper set, who will probably never know (or care) that it's a cover.
Their rendition of "There She Goes" was a musical pap smear as well. Is nothing sacred?

I LIKE IT !!! I'm a huge CH fan, and don't care for Six Pence, but I found it to be a great version, much better musicianship and tones. However, her phrasing does kill me.

GAHHHHHHH! They play this song like, 100 times a day on the station we listen to at work. It's a toss-up between that cover and The Dixie Chicks' version of "Landslide", which also makes me grind my teeth!

Thanks for letting me vent!

vch

The sweet thing is the number of my family and friends who have brought this cover to my attention. Guess my obsession has not gone unnoticed at all.

A friend of mine brought this to my attention so I finally listened to it. I agree pretty much with the general tend here - I don't think the vocal delivery was flattering to the song. Musically I don't think they did anything interesting with it either.

It's a pity that Cuillin broke up; they recorded a GREAT version of Six Months in a Leaky Boat.

At least the 6pence version isn't half as bad as the one by the Irish group "DOVE'--absolutely the WORST cover of DDIO--it even includes a rap sequence ("hey now...hey now..")!!@#%$! Can't imagine what Neil Finn thought about that version.

I know what I think of Dove's cover, though... and I could only listen to less than a minute of it before I had to run from the room, gagging.

Even the thought of that musical travesty right now makes my (currently) weak stomach want to churn right over, for the umpteenth time today...

I recall DOVE being interviewed about this, and they apparently met Neil after one of his shows and played him a demo of their cover prior to it's release - I recall reading that he made suggestions regarding the guitar as I recall, so clearly he was not horrified.
I have no idea how Neil feels about the end results, I doubt he cares much - though one thing DOVE do deserve credit for is the fact that they didn't do a carbon copy of the song (as approaching 20 artists I've heard record DDIO to date have largely done -it's Neil's most covered song by far - with 4 or 5 different acapella versions alone!).
It's also worth pointing out that when DOVE released their single, it was simply (re)titled "Don't Dream" - I believe this reflected the rap style they introduced to the singing of the chorus,
Regardless of the perceived quality of the cover the artist being covered has no power to prevent a song they have recorded being released by others as a cover, but in this instance Neil had a preview and suggestion.

For anyone interested, of all the many DDIO covers, the one that most impressed me is a full-on fast rock version as recorded by a band called NOWHERE FAST, and most curious is one recorded in Italian as "Alta Marea" by ANTOLELLO VENDITTI complete with jazzy saxophone.

Now if only we could get more people cover songs other than "Don't Dram It's Over", "Fall At Your Feet", Message To My Girl", and "I Got You" !!

OOps. Okay, I may be guilty of being a little harsh... but personally, just about every cover of DDIO I've heard has required cracking out the anti-nausea medication...

And not to be a spelling nazi, but "Don't Dram" I found to be a beautiful little Freudian slip. I find myself needing a wee "dram" o'whiskey after hearing any of these DDIO covers...

This isn't a cover so much as a note-for-note clone of the original. SNTR's take adds nothing to the song. Why bother doing a remake of a classic song if you're not going to at least TRY to make it your own in some way?!?

It's listenable, sure, because it's a great song. But why settle for this version when CH's original is infinitely better?

Well, I finally heard this. And even more weird, I heard it 2 days in a row and both times at McDonalds (I only eat there for the articles).

Better than nails on a blackboard but I agree with those of you who say what's the point of doing a cover if you're just going to copy it note for note, like aural tracing. All in all, harmless but pointless.

RE the Frente thing, if you liked Frente (I hated them), check out a record called "Have You Got A Name For It" by Splendid. It's a couple of years old now but is one of my favorite cds. The singer is the lead singer from Frente. Great, great songs and performances. Best album I've heard in years (including the Finns' efforts, I'm sad to say).

quote:

Originally posted by John:
[qb] check out a record called "Have You Got A Name For It" by Splendid. It's a couple of years old now but is one of my favorite cds. The singer is the lead singer from Frente. Great, great songs and performances. Best album I've heard in years (including the Finns' efforts, I'm sad to say). [/qb]

Hey, I liked that album too! Very simple, romantic songs...and I much prefer Angie Hart's voice to Leigh Nash's. I appreciate your honesty re. the Finns' recent material and hope that perhaps the upcoming Finn Brothers album is more up your alley (& glad you're back in the NY groove.)

now this IS weird! in mickey-d's again today and AGAIN i heard 6pence none the boringer singing 'hey now'. that's 3 times i've heard it in my life and each time it was in a visit to the golden arches. spooky!