Anyway, my first reaction (before even listening to the New School version by Laura Michelle Kelly) was “Sacrilege!” (I’d never heard the two versions played back to back before)
By the way, Miss Kelly has gotten rave reviews for her role in the production of Mary Poppins on London’s West End and that’s no mean feat. So, she's not talentless...
Anyway, judge for yourselves.
First listen to the Old School version (by Keane):
Then, listen to the New School version (by Laura Michelle Kelly):
My thoughts afterwards: I still prefer the original, but I’m biased.* I liked parts of Miss Kelly’s performance, but it sounds more like the opening number of a musical than anything else. In addition, she may have had really good musicians and arrangers working with her, but Keane consists of a lead vocalist with a very distinctive voice who’s also a great songwriter (Tom Chaplin), a genius composer/songwriter on keyboard/piano (Tim Rice-Oxley), and a talented drummer who knows how to elevate a song with his contribution (Richard Hughes).
Okay, so what does this have to do with comics or Seafire for that matter?
I just realised that considering Kelly’s musical theatre background plus my opinion of the three members of Keane, it was tantamount (at least in my eyes) to taking DC’s Trinity (Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) as a collective and comparing the group with Marvel's Dazzler.
VS
Seafire, as you may or may not recall, was a commenter who really came out to defend Dazzler when I got down on her a while back nad I'd like to read seafire's blog. So, this is an attempt to say, "Seafire, dude or dudette, you defended Dazzler with such passion that I'd like to read your comics blog."
I'll always take the original over anything new/remade/redone/reimagined/rebooted, whatever, with rare exception. Or, at least, prefer whichever I heard/read/saw first. This makes me one of those annoying purist people, but oh well. I never knew Keane sang that song, so I guess you learn something new every day.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember that post Scipio did on Dazzler? Good times.
Yup, I'm with you on the love for originals. This is actually Keane's most covered song. Another much older band, Travis, and Natasha Beddingfield have also covered it as well as 1 or 2 others from other genres.
ReplyDeleteThat post (or posts) are ultimate WIN.
It's one of those songs that I've heard before but never knew who sang it. (I tend to have that problem a lot.) It's kind of a wistful/evocative/somewhat depressing song when you think about the lyrics, which I rather like.
ReplyDeleteI SO wish Scipio would start up The Absorbascon again. Especially considering that even Vibe came back as a Black Lantern...