Day N Nite - Kid Cuti with Jim Jones Cover

GUEST POST BY NEAL MEDLYN

The music to this cover is the first song I ever wrote on the piano at around age ten or so. I spent untold amounts of time just playing those four chords over and over, especially at my grandmother's house when she would make me practice piano when what I would rather have been doing was lassoing bumble bees (totally possible and kind of awesome!) or wandering around in my grandfather's small corn field acting out Biblical scenes.

Kid Cudi is awesome by the way and you should endeavor to learn more about him.

Talk to you later.

Bye.

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Day N Nite - Kid Cuti wJim Jones Cover by Neal Medlyn

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS - Boys Don't Cry - The Cure Cover

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS!

This has always been one of my favorite songs. When I was in 5th grade I wrote a musical based on Wind And The Willows. I worked very hard on it. At the last minute one of my teachers, Mrs. Washington, pulled the plug. I broke down crying and she said "Well, I have never seen a 5th grade boy cry before!" What a bitch..

Kenny

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Boys Don't Cry - The Cure Cover

Right Round - Flo rida Cover by Neal Medlyn

Guest Post by Neal Medlyn!

Oh God did I spend a lot of my pre-teen years with the drum machine on my various Casio and Yamaha keyboards, teaching myself the ins and outs of hip hop conventions such as the clutch-unclutch triangle beat, the careful alternation of two kinds of snare and two kinds of bass drum, the occasional off-beat clave hit, the two tone cowbell pattern, the lazy 1/8 note swing.

Here, America, are the fruits of all that lonely pre-teen time: every single one of those conventions used in service of the Number One song in America right now: Flo Rida's "Right Round".

Neal

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Right Round - Flo Rida Cover by Neal Medlyn

Thinking Of You - Katy Perry Cover

     So second Katy Perry composition in two days.  As Lily Allen pointed out disdainfully, Katy Perry is working with Cathy Dennis so it is no surprise that most of her songs sound like hits.  Cathy Dennis was a minor 80s pop star who then went on to write such songs as I Can't Get You Out Of My Head, which though annoying as all get out, is a tightly constructed song.  So here we have Thinking Of You and it really is a classic pop ballad.  My piano part has a bit too much Bruce Hornsby for my taste, but well, there you have it. 

Kenny

Correction:  Just looked up the composers of Thinking Of You and it is just Katy Perry.  Which is not to say that in this business other people didn't have their hands in the pot but....good for her!  And apologies...

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: THINKING OF YOU - Katy Perry Cover

I Do Not Hook Up - Kelly Clarkson Cover

  So Kelly Clarkson's new album is about to drop and she covers Katy Perry with I Do Not Hook Up.  She makes it all sound so exciting but if you really read the lyrics it is quite a depressing song.  

Oh, sweetheart,
put the bottle down
You've got too much talent
I see you through those bloodshot eyes
There's a cure, you've found it
Slow motion, sparks
You've caught that chill
Now don't deny it
But boys will be boys
Oh, yes, they will
They don't wanna define it
Just give up the game and get into me
If you're looking for thrills then get cold feet

Oh, no I do not hook up,
up I go slow
So if you want me,
I don't come cheap
Keep your thing in your pants,
your heart on your sleeve
Oh, no I do not hook up,
up I fall deep
Cause the more that you try,
the harder I'll fight

   Strange, right?  So I played it on harpsichord...

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: I Do Not Hook Up - Kelly Clarkson Cover

MEDLEY MONDAYS - Cry and Something In Me Ugly - Rihanna/Suckdog Cover by Neal Medlyn

GUEST POST BY NEAL MEDLYN

It's medley Monday and the other day, contemplating Rihanna's current situation, I imagined her song "Cry" combined with this creepy, sad song by Suckdog that I played exactly once because it freaked me the fuck out.

I had found Suckdog's album "Little Flowers Dying" in a second hand clothing store in Manhattan several years ago. I actually mentioned that album to Lisa Carver (a hero of mine and the person behind the band/opera troupe Suckdog) and she said something to the effect that she hated it. I love it. It's sing songy and weird and sad and awful and kinda glorious.

Anyway, here are the two together, at last, given the Radiohead treatment.

Get well soon, Rihanna.

Neal

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Cry/Something In Me Ugly - Rihanna/Suckdog Cover by Neal Medlyn

See You In My Nightmares - Kanye West Cover by Neal Medlyn

Hi there America!

Kanye West is the best.

I assume you have gathered that that is the going opinion around these parts, so I'll spare you my gushing feelings about him and how disappointing to me it is that it takes us all so long to catch up with popular culture.

Although, actually, I am going to go into that.

If I may, I would like to call out everyone who spent the entire 80s bemoaning the loss of "authentic" instruments and the advent of synthesizers. Then, at some point in the 90s, they dropped the whole thing and acted like they had seen the ascendancy of hip hop and sampled and synthesized music coming the whole time, never even bothering to justify themselves.

Well, you can't that one past me, America! I have a copy of Details magazine from the late 80s both crying over the loss of Dylan-style "authenticity" and declaring the death of hip hop.

This is what I would do with a time capsule, by the way. Go back in time, carrying 808s & Heartbreak, and rub it in.

Neal Medlyn

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: See You In My Nightmares - Kanye West Cover by Neal Medlyn