This guy knew what to do with a weekend.
Votes due by Saturday, October 15th at 11pm EST: Let’s get ready for the weekend, folks! We have got some super fun match ups. Some tough choices to be made, but this should be a good set to listen to on a Friday at work. Let’s get ready for the weekend, folks!
Grooveshark link is here. Plus we have one YouTube song – Baba O’Riley.
First off for Day 10, we have a couple of covers of more recent songs. Mr. Little Jeans, aka Monica Birkenes of Norway, covers “The Suburbs”, originally done by Arcade Fire. If you have a spare moment, I highly recommend that you check out the video that High5Collective made for this cover. It is amaze. The Suburbs goes up against Beyonce’s version of “Sex on Fire”, recorded at the Glastonbury Festival earlier this year.
Is it only a teenage wasteland?
Next up on our playlist-o-fun, we have Midnight Spin’s take on “Baba O’Riley”. Here’s the YouTube link for this one. Midnight Spin’s song Trigger Finger Itch did pretty well in the People’s Choice Tournament – can they take that momentum to bring down Manfred Mann’s Earth Band covering “Blinded By the Light?” Bruce Springsteen, the original artist on this one, joked about the commonly misheard lyric that it was not until Manfred Mann rewrote the song to be about a “feminine hygiene product” that it became popular. Awesome.
Let’s take this party in a new direction: Greenskeepers, a Chicago band, does a Huey Lewis and the News song and makes it their own, with “I Want a New Drug.” They face an electronica-ish version of an ABBA song “Take a Chance on Me,” by Erasure.
For our last trick, we have two musical titans, covering two other musical titans. CLASH OF THE TITANS! Elvis Presley first performed “Sweet Caroline” in 1970, only a year after Neil Diamond’s original was released. It was apparently so popular that he kept in in his set list for years. Elvis is up against “Graceland”, done by Willie Nelson.
Musical buddies!
Here is the Grooveshark one more time, plus Baba O’Riley, and pasteables:
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson
Have a happy weekend everyone!!
Living the Dream 
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 2/2
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 8 / 8.5 – have to admit, I thought this was the original version of Blinded by the Light. Amatuer on my part!
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 2.5 /6
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson 8.5 / 6.5
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans 7
vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 6
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin 7 It’s not particularly innovative (which is fine), but the resemblance of the singer’s voice to Roger Daltrey’s is uncanny. Got to give them credit for fidelity to the original.
vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 5
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers 2 Listening to this, I can’t believe that I’m probably going to give the Abba cover a higher score.
vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 3 Ugg
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis 4 If Neil Diamond is the Jewish Elvis, does this cover make Elvis the Goy Neil Diamond?
vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson 6 Great tune, great voice
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans 3
“Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 7.2
Beyonce kills this! The first time she sings the words “your sex is on fire” – damn, all I got. This gets live energy points too, score definitely went up as this went on.
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin 7
“Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 7
These songs have a lot of rhythmic similarities, if that makes sense.
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers 4
“Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 5
Ooof.
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis 6.5
“Graceland” by Willie Nelson 6.5
Did I really just give Beyonce the high score here? Confusion comes over me.
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. 5
“Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 7
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. 5
“Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 7
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. 6
“Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 5
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. 8
“Graceland” by Willie Nelson 7
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce: 5/5
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: 5/8
Isn’t Manfred Mann’s “cover” of blinded by the light like Hendrix “covering” All Along the Watch Tower?
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure: 5.5/4.5
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson: 7/7
I would love the Elvis “Sweet Caroline” if the Sox had a farm team in Tenn, Kentucky, or the Carolinas…The king brings it as he approaches the chorus. While I don’t prefer this version, i think he’s doing a fine job. I actually prefer the Red Headed Stranger’s Graceland to the original.
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 2.5 to 2.5
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 3.5 to 4.8
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 2.0 to 4.0
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson 5.5 to 4.5
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 2.5 to 2.0
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 3.0 to 5.0
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 2.0 to 5.0
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson 5.5 to 3.0
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce: 7 / 6
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: 5 / 5
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure: 5 / 6
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson: 7 / 8
I love Willie’s take on this one.
I think this set of songs seemed better to me on Thursday night…
I’m voting with my mom, Lori, this morning. My vote, then hers.
“The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans vs. “Sex on Fire” by Beyonce (i think something is wrong with the beyonce in the grooveshark. i just found it on youtube)
5.5/8.5 The Suburbs is pleasant enough and will probably grow on me if it moves on. Beyonce, is awesome. In this cover, she reminds me of Tina Turner in a good way.
6/7.5
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin vs. “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band
4.5/7
3/8
On the “Yoo hoo!” at the beginning of Baba, my mom’s eyes got big and she said “I could have done without that.” I guess I know where I get my aversion to screamy music. Also, she doesn’t like Baba O’Reilly anyway (what!?) and says that this version is too close to the original for her tastes.
I did not realize that Blinded by the LIght was a cover. I give it an 8 as a song, but I’m docking it a point because it is in the Should have been Dq’ed category. My mom kept saying “That’s really a cover?”
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers vs. “Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure
6/7.25
7.8/7.4
We started listening to “I want a new drug” and I said “I don’t think I’m going to like this much” and mom said “Oh, wait a second! That’s Huey Lewis!” and started dancing. It kind of grew on me.
Take a Chance on me had an 8 from me until the weird reggae part started. YUCK.
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis vs. “Graceland” by Willie Nelson
4.5/9.8
4/9.5
Graceland was my nomination and I love it. Willie Nelson is a family favorite.
I like Sweet Caroline and I like Elvis ok, but I don’t really like all of the extra moans and things he has inserted in there.
Votes are for ChrisB/Carolyn
The Suburbs” by Mr. Little Jeans 9.3/6.5 Loved it, but doubt it will go far based on far it is outside the mainstream of most of the successful songs.
“Sex on Fire” by Beyonce 4/4.5
“Baba O’Riley” by Midnight Spin 5/5
“Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band 6.2/8 Docked points for not passing the Jimi Hendrix test.
“I Want a New Drug” by Greenskeepers 6.5/8
“Take a Chance on Me” by Erasure 3.9/4.5 It was higher until we hit the Jamaican Rapper.
“Sweet Caroline” by Elvis 9/9.5
“Graceland” by Willie Nelson 7.5/7