Jun 222024
 
Aloe Blacc

Fresh off his psychedelic soul cover of grunge standard “Black Hole Sun,” Aloe Blacc is back with another transformative cover of a massive hit. This time he’s taking on one of the biggest songs of the aughts, The White Stripes‘ “Seven Nation Army” – a song so big it has joined the canon of sports arena staples along with “Sandstorm” and that dance remix of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

Blacc is not the first soul singer to take on the rather large task of trying to breathe new life into such a well-known song. Back in 2020, we wrote about Sam Cary’s sultry version of “Seven Nation Army,” which plays with the bassline a little bit, giving it some swing. Blacc’s approach is both similar and significantly different, with a far more upbeat pace, but with a that same approach to giving the song some swing.

Blacc’s version begins with some funky syncopated drumming before the infamous bassline comes in. There’s syncopation to the bass to and it swings much more than the original. Blacc’s vocal is a soulful play on White’s original. Horns enter part way through the first verse and its their job to play the role of slide guitar in this cover. There’s some classic, James Brown-esque rhythm guitar added to the mix. Like any good funk song, there’s a bridge, and that introduces a fun new play on the rhythm of the verse before the band goes back to how they were playing it before.

It’s a lively, fun, soulful cover of a song that has been played to death. Check it out:

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