Cover Duos

I don't know if this is a "trend" or not, but I have noticed lately a couple of interesting duos that do a lot of covers. They produce videos on YouTube and both are interesting to watch and listen to because of the ingenuity of the arrangements. I always enjoy watching how people achieve musical effects.

The older duo, Pomplamoose, I have known about for a while, but I don't recall if I have ever blogged about them. The members are Nataly Dawn and Jack Conte and they both play a host of musical instruments and sing. Here are a couple of samples of their work. First, "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé which won't embed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIr8-f2OWhs

And here is "Come Together" by the Beatles, which is another of those that Blogger won't embed, so you have to follow the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW7evu7SJBA

And finally, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson:

These are their older productions where a lot of it is about the video editing. Recently, they have evolved into more of a live act. But I like the older stuff for its unique weirdness. They manage to combine a kind of high-energy geekiness with a flat affect, especially in the singing. Just slightly creepy!

Starting from a similar idea, but with a quite different result is the Brazilian duo Overdriver Duo whose members are Evandro Tiburski and Fabi Terada. The first thing I saw of theirs was a cover of "Somewhere over the Rainbow." Be sure to watch right to the end so you hear his over the top ukulele solo!

They are really talented on various instruments, even if they never learned how to hold the guitar properly (heh!). Here's their version of "Beat It" with a great re-creation of Eddie van Halen's guitar solo:

And here is a Red Hot Chili Peppers tune in which she plays bass AND drums and he plays bass AND guitar and they both sing:

Hey, does this mean that lip-sync is over? Big change from the 60s when all the instrumental tracks of popular groups were laid down by the same list of studio musicians. I like this a lot better!