British singer-songwriter Griff, aka Sarah Griffiths, released her debut mixtape last year, to follow up her UK Top 20 single “Black Hole.” Now she’s covered Queen’s “A Kind of Magic.”
“A Kind of Magic” was Queen‘s biggest hit from the album of the same name, a pseudo soundtrack to the campy ’80s fantasy film Highlander. Like the majority of the record, “A Kind of Magic” was written for the film and its lyrics refer to various lines from the film.
There are actually two versions of this Queen cover featuring Griff. One is a solo track and the other is a bombastic, international collaboration for a Coke ad featuring various artists who have released their own versions of this song.
Griff’s solo cover is notably subdued compared to the original, it’s also half as long. She opens briefly a cappella but she is quickly joined by some lightly strummed guitar. There is a lower-end synthesizer part and some vocal overdubs. The mood is a lot less joyful than the original. As the song progresses, some more instruments are added to the mix. The outro is just her voice (doubled) and the guitar.
It’s an interesting interpretation of the song with a totally different tone than the original. And it’s a lot more appealing to me personally than the wildly over-the-top Coke ad she’s also involved in. Check out both below.
