Monday, February 26, 2018

Hot! Live! Music!

Postmodern Jukebox, "Teenage Dirtbag"
Oh man, major high school flashbacks on this one.  The video even starred Mena Suvari and Jason Biggs, which is about as Y2K as it gets.  I give a lot of credit to the singer here, who is one of the few vocalists capable of singing in a Joplin-esque style without sounding breaking the try-hard scale.


Robyn Adele Anderson, "Lose Yourself"
RAA here has performed with the Postmodern Jukebox in the past, but now seems to be doing...basically exactly the same kind of performances, except on her own YouTube channel.  I stand by my theory that there was some huge schism between RAA and Postmodern Jukebox that led to this neverending rivalry for old-timey cover song supremacy.  Maybe Scott Bradlee pointed out that she'll always be the second-most famous singer named a) Robyn, and b) Adele, and RAA just became enraged.


Bastille, "Good Grief"
This seems like one of those acoustic performances that probably didn't need the whole band, yet all four were brought in to save any hurt feelings.  All you really need is the singer and a bassist, or maybe just a singer and a percussionist, or maybe even just the singer myself on the keyboard.  Having four instruments along with the vocals makes it sounds less stripped-down than it probably should be, given the effect they were trying to achieve.  Also, why they aren't all dressed like Charlie Brown?


U2, "The Little Things That Give You Away"
Quite a few U2 live performances on talk shows or whatnot fit into the "should be more stripped down" category, as in Larry and Adam don't have much to do.  I feel there's some interesting potential in just Edge and Bono performing the songs....but it's not nearly as all four of them playing at peak awesomeness, a.k.a. this song and its extraordinary build and climax.

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