One of my favourite things is seeing bands play tribute to other musicians as a part of their live shows, something Coldplay have a good track record of doing. While performing in Vienna, lead singer Chris Martin made reference to Taylor Swift‘s cancelled shows in the city, and asked Maggie Rogers and two dedicated Swifties from the audience to join him in a cover of Swift’s massive hit “Love Story.” Continue reading »
Rachel Chinouriri is an alt/indie singer-songwriter, who performed at the Glastonbury festival this year. Another act at Glastonbury? Coldplay. So she recored a cover of “The Scientist” to celebrate.
As it turns out, the artist has a large amount of reverence for Coldplay because of a personal experience. In an interview, she once stated:
“Coldplay, like, saved my life. I was 13 and going through that the worst time ever as I was in a racist secondary school, but Coldplay was one thing that kept me going,” she had told the publication The Forty-Five. “I have this love and connection with Coldplay that is just endless, and no one can ever change my mind. I don’t care what music that they put out; I don’t want to hear a single thing about them that is bad.”
As Chinouriri began singing, the notes flowed out effortlessly. Even if one didn’t know the relationship the artist has with Coldplay, the purity with which “The Scientist” was delivered told all. This version is a near-genre swap. The vocals have moments of light and airy jazz riffs, and the instrumental introduction is unexpected, with its panned electronic eighth notes (that tickle the brain just right). As we phase in, the beat gets solidified and the arrangement becomes more similar to the original, while the heartfelt and gentle vocals continue to offer a direct contrast to the Coldplay version.
JXDN (AKA Jaden Hossler) is a well-known internet personality and singer-songwriter from Tennessee. The artist first took off from a video he posted on TikTok in 2019. Then, his debut album, Comatose came out in 2020. JXDN primarily hovers around the emo/pop-punk and rap genres. And now? The artist has taken on the iconic, anthemic Coldplay song “Yellow.” The pop-rock fusion cover of the song was created for Spotify Singles. Continue reading »
At a recent show in Gothenburg, Sweden, English pop superstars Coldplay led the crowd in a rousing rendition of the Backstreet Boys’ 1997 hit, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).” Played during the last quarter of their set, between an acoustic version of “In my Place” and the track “Humankind” from their most recent album, lead singer Chris Martin begins by playing around on the piano to arrive at the iconic melody line. Continue reading »
Though not their biggest hit in terms of sales or charts, “Clocks” is certainly one of Coldplay‘s most iconic songs. This is in part due to to the insistent piano riff, which made the song stand out among the other big hits of 2003. But also: it has been sampled bunch of times since, including by many hip hop and R&B artists. Continue reading »
Under the Radar shines a light on lesser-known cover artists. If you’re not listening to these folks, you should. Catch up on past installments here.
When it comes to instrumental covers of popular music, my go-to is the edgier jazz artists–you probably know the ones I mean. They are lovable troublemakers, but sometimes their jarring ways, all the virtuoso-signaling, is not what the mood calls for. More and more I appreciate instrumentalists who play the melody straight, who embrace the original arrangement of the song and work within its comforting confines.
The trick is that a more modest and direct approach can wash the color out of a song–it becomes the music you hear when the bank puts you on hold. A good cover has a proper edge to it: there’s embellishment and surprise in it, a searching quality, a point of view–all the things missing from the music that elevators listen to during their work hours. For me, the Michael Udelson Trio brings all the good aspects to their jazzy treatments, and leaves behind the undesirable bits.
The band has so far released two recordings, both of them cover albums: Irrational Numbers and Minor Infractions (2015 and 2016). (During the COVID lockdown period, the trio got together virtually to share some new material with fans–so maybe there’s more albums coming in the future.) This next part I find mystifying: these two albums and the songs on them have a vanishingly small number of views/plays. (Probably most of those plays are mine.) The trio’s most popular track on Spotify is their take on Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” It has 17,000 plays. For every other Udelson track, Spotify displays a blank instead a number in the “Plays” column–which why the phrase “vanishingly small” seems apt. It’s fair to ask how that 17,000 figure compares to any jazz piano version of “Paranoid Android.” Here’s a point of comparison: Brad Mehldau’s cover has nearly 5,000,000 plays.
Few seem to know or care about MUT–not even its own members, as we’ll see shortly. So who are these guys, and where their fans at?
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