Old Songs, New Takes
Ever since I started getting into music, I have been exposed to a wide variety of it. My music interests have expanded (seemingly slowly, but surely) as a result of that. As I got deeper into music, I found myself looking for different versions of the same songs by the same artists. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but there's something that's always intrigued me about listening to different versions of the same songs. For the most part, these different versions have come in the form of live versions of these songs. No performances of any song sounds exactly the same live, which is part of what makes them so interesting to listen to. However, it's even more interesting to find new studio versions of old songs from the same artists. When it comes to live versions of a song, there are usually some variations between them, whether it be that the live version is longer, it's in another key, the vocal stylings are different, or some other thing. With rerecorded studio versions, hearing how a song is [completely] reimagined from the original and listening to the old version vs. the new one is a lot of fun. That's why I decided to write a blog post about it. I'm sure that there are a lot more artists that have done it, but for this post I'm just going to stick with a few of them in order to keep this somewhat short. Since most of the bands/artists that I know of who have done this are classic rock artists, I will be focusing mainly on them. I will not be talking about live albums since those are almost always just bands/artists recreating their studio work in a live setting, or members of a band performing their band's songs.
I'll start off with John Fogerty. Back in 2013, he released an album called Wrote A Song For Everyone. I heard about the album a year after it came out, and didn't know what to think of it when I first listened to it. It started growing on me in 2017, but I didn't really fall in love with the album until Fall of 2018 when I spent a semester in Los Angeles for school and it became part of my regular CD rotation in my car. The album is a collection of 12 songs from throughout Fogerty's career redone with various other artists, as well 2 new songs. Some of the artists brought in to perform on this album are the Foo Fighters, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, and the Zac Brown Band. The sound and feel of each reimagined song is influenced heavily by the guest artist(s) that appear on each song. For example, "Fortunate Son" with the Foo Fighters is much more hard rock than the original version, and I could 100% see people headbanging to it. Some of these reimagined songs aren't all that much to listen to in my opinion, such as "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" with Alan Jackson, and "Lodi" with John's sons, Shane and Tyler Fogerty. Not to say that these versions are bad, I just don't think that they stand out the way that other songs on the album do. Some of these songs I actually like better than the originals (fight me, bro), each one for different reasons. But the overall reason that I like these versions better is that I feel that they have more life to them than the original versions. Some of these include "Hot Rod Heart" with Brad Paisley, "Who'll Stop the Rain" with Bob Seger, "Proud Mary" with Jennifer Hudson, and "Long As I Can See the Light" with My Morning Jacket. There are also two new songs on this album with just John Fogerty. The first new song, "Mystic Highway" talks about the journey through life, and it took Fogerty 30 years to write. It is a fun, upbeat song, with a positive outlook on what can sometimes be a gloomy topic. The other, "Train of Fools", talks about life as well, but takes a different, more despairing approach. It talks of different people who let their lives go to waste in some form or another. In my opinion, it's one of, if not the most forgettable track on the album. This album is one of my go-to CDs when I'm driving, and ever since I left LA I get somewhat nostalgic for it when I listen to this. I can't guarantee that you'll love it like I do, but I definitely recommend that you give it a listen.
Peter Gabriel is another artist that I want to focus in on with this post. Throughout his career as a solo artist, Peter Gabriel has a significant list of hits, including (but not limited to) "Solsbury Hill", "Shock the Monkey", "Sledgehammer", and "In Your Eyes". Now imagine hearing some of those songs, but with - wait for it - an orchestra. That's exactly what Peter did when he released an album called New Blood in 2011. He re-recorded some of his most well known songs, but with an orchestra backing him. No drums, no guitars, no bass… Just an orchestra. I didn't get into Peter Gabriel until about my junior year of high school, which was 2013-14, so I didn't get to listen to the album right when it came out. Like Wrote A Song, I really wasn't sure what to think of it at first. I was so used to listening to the original versions of these songs that hearing completely rearranged versions of them was very strange. After a couple listens, it started to grow on me. Of the songs that I have heard on it, there are a couple that I don't really think an orchestra really fits with. One of these songs is "Digging In The Dirt". While it isn't "bad", per se, I don't feel that this version captures the anger and longing feeling that the song has in the original studio recording, and especially in the live recordings of it on Secret World Live and Growing Up Live. However, there are plenty of other songs that the album has to offer, and there are some of them that send chills down my spine listening to them. A couple of these are "In Your Eyes" and "San Jacinto". "In Your Eyes" is one of my favorite love songs, and this version takes the love and passion of the original studio version and emotes those feelings in a completely new, yet still just as powerful way. "San Jacinto" shines a new light on the curiosity of cultural differences, and the anticipation of facing death in an Apache Indian ritual in which a boy is lead atop a mountain and left alone to find his way back down the mountain after being bitten by a rattlesnake. Other highlights (for me) include "Rhythm of the Heat", and "Red Rain". Are these songs going to be really weird to listen to for the first time in this arrangement? Probably. Is it worth a listen? I certainly think so. Just because they're different doesn't mean they're not good, and I think this album is a great addition to any Peter Gabriel fan's collection.
More modern artists have released multiple studio versions of their songs as well. However, I don't think any are quite as unique as twenty one pilots. TOP started out in Columbus, Ohio (#hometownpride) in 2009 as a 3-piece band. Their first album, a self-titled album, was a collection of 14 songs that frontman Tyler Joseph wrote. However, the other two members left, and Josh Dun came on board. The two went on to record and release the band's second album, Regional At Best. What makes this situation of re-recording songs different is that they didn't really have a choice. After the band signed to the record label Fueled By Ramen, they had to discontinue the selling of RAB (Regulus Arcturus Black?) because 5 of the songs (6 if you count the bonus track "House Of Gold" from the newsletter subscriber's version of RAB) from it were to be released on their 3rd album, Vessel, which was their first album on a label. While I like the Vessel versions of all of these songs better, it is still very interesting to hear all the differences between them. When comparing the different versions of these songs, the most notable difference is that the versions on Vessel sound a lot more refined and professional than the ones on Regional At Best. All of the songs had most of the parts rerecorded for the most part. The most noticeable of these changes is the drums. On RAB, the drums sound good, but they sound almost kind of weak and hollow. I don't know if that was due to the drums just sounding like that, if it was the kind of equipment used to record it, or if it was a choice that the band made to make them sound like that. The new drums on Vessel are much more full and solid. A couple songs, "Guns For Hands" and "Holding Onto You", kept the same vocal take from RAB on Vessel. The others had both the instruments and the vocals redone, such as "Car Radio" and "Trees". The new vocal takes on Vessel sound much more natural to me, and Tyler Joseph's voice sounds a lot less shrill and strained than on RAB. In my opinion, the song with the most noticeable differences is "Ode To Sleep", mainly because the synthesizers - which are the main drive of the songs - are very different from each other. There are vocal parts that were changed in the new from the old, vocal parts in the old that aren't in the new, and the new version has a more ominous feel during the verses. If you're a twenty one pilots fan and haven't yet listened to the different versions of these songs, I recommend that you do. Also, to those of you who haven't listened to TOP, check out Regional At Best (you can find all the songs on YouTube) and Vessel. They're both great albums.
The most recent artist I know of to have rerecorded his past works is Sting. He released an album of songs throughout his career with the Police as well as his solo work called My Songs. The new versions stay pretty true to the originals, mostly with some minor differences. There are new effects on some instruments, and the vocals are rerecorded as well. "Shape of My Heart" doesn't have the harmonica in it like the original, the mandolin in "Fields of Gold" is taken out along with the harmonica solo, and are replaced with what sounds like a fiddle, and "Englishman In New York" has a very R&B feel to it. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to much of it at all at the point of this blog post being written, but I still wanted to include it. In addition to this, Sting has also released an album of orchestral versions of songs that he has done throughout his career. I will say that I have not listened to this album, but I feel that it would be much like Peter Gabriel's orchestral remakes - some of the songs work really well with the orchestral arrangements, and others not so much.
Some other artists that have done rerecordings of their songs include:
-Walk The Moon: 6 songs on I Want! I Want! rerecorded for their self-titled album - As much as I love Walk The Moon, I didn't want to write an entire paragraph on them to keep this post from being longer than it already is. In short, the versions of the songs that appear on both albums have a much more garageband-ish feel to them on I Want! I Want! than on their self-titled album. While they have pretty much the same instrumentations, the versions on IW!IW! are much more raw. While the new versions have a little more to them, they have a much more airy feel to them, and there is a very noticeable difference in production value to them. That's not to detract from the original versions though. They both sound really good, and are both fun to listen to.
-Bon Jovi: This Left Feels Right - On this album, Bon Jovi took some of their most famous songs and put completely new spins on them. It doesn't seem like there was really any kind of direction that they were looking to go with the style of the new versions, as they have a pretty good range to them. "Always", which originally is a power ballad about wanting a lover back, is mellowed out with acoustic guitars, a slow and steady synth, and even an accordion. "You Give Love a Bad Name" sounds like it was given the same treatment Eric Clapton gave "Layla" on Unplugged, with the song being transformed into an acoustic shuffle blues rock song with a bass line that sounds like something the Stray Cats would do. Whether you end up liking it or not, This Left Feels Right certainly is an interesting listen.
-Bon Jovi: "Prayer '94" (rerecording of "Livin' On a Prayer") from their album Cross Road - This is much different than the original. It's at half of the tempo of the original, and the instrumentation is significantly different. This version puts more emphasis on the lyrics of the song, and the instrumentation helps to highlight the stress and hardship that the lyrics speak of.
-Gordon Lightfoot: most of the songs on Gord's Gold, Vol. 2 - these updated versions of these songs have a bit more of a fullness in their sound. They were rerecorded in 1988, and the fact that they were done in the 80s definitely shows in the songs. They have more compression, more reverb, and more synthesizers than in the originals. Even though I don't listen to Lightfoot very much, I thought it was worth mentioning this one here.
I have no doubt that there are so many more rerecordings of songs that bands have done than I am aware of. Some of them are probably spectacular, some probably not so great but not bad, and some of them probably should have never been done in the first place. However, it's all up to the people listening to them that get to decide which is which, and even then there will be some division. Any way people judge them, it's always fun to listen to these new versions of these songs and see what new vision the artists had for them.
I'll start off with John Fogerty. Back in 2013, he released an album called Wrote A Song For Everyone. I heard about the album a year after it came out, and didn't know what to think of it when I first listened to it. It started growing on me in 2017, but I didn't really fall in love with the album until Fall of 2018 when I spent a semester in Los Angeles for school and it became part of my regular CD rotation in my car. The album is a collection of 12 songs from throughout Fogerty's career redone with various other artists, as well 2 new songs. Some of the artists brought in to perform on this album are the Foo Fighters, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, and the Zac Brown Band. The sound and feel of each reimagined song is influenced heavily by the guest artist(s) that appear on each song. For example, "Fortunate Son" with the Foo Fighters is much more hard rock than the original version, and I could 100% see people headbanging to it. Some of these reimagined songs aren't all that much to listen to in my opinion, such as "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" with Alan Jackson, and "Lodi" with John's sons, Shane and Tyler Fogerty. Not to say that these versions are bad, I just don't think that they stand out the way that other songs on the album do. Some of these songs I actually like better than the originals (fight me, bro), each one for different reasons. But the overall reason that I like these versions better is that I feel that they have more life to them than the original versions. Some of these include "Hot Rod Heart" with Brad Paisley, "Who'll Stop the Rain" with Bob Seger, "Proud Mary" with Jennifer Hudson, and "Long As I Can See the Light" with My Morning Jacket. There are also two new songs on this album with just John Fogerty. The first new song, "Mystic Highway" talks about the journey through life, and it took Fogerty 30 years to write. It is a fun, upbeat song, with a positive outlook on what can sometimes be a gloomy topic. The other, "Train of Fools", talks about life as well, but takes a different, more despairing approach. It talks of different people who let their lives go to waste in some form or another. In my opinion, it's one of, if not the most forgettable track on the album. This album is one of my go-to CDs when I'm driving, and ever since I left LA I get somewhat nostalgic for it when I listen to this. I can't guarantee that you'll love it like I do, but I definitely recommend that you give it a listen.
More modern artists have released multiple studio versions of their songs as well. However, I don't think any are quite as unique as twenty one pilots. TOP started out in Columbus, Ohio (#hometownpride) in 2009 as a 3-piece band. Their first album, a self-titled album, was a collection of 14 songs that frontman Tyler Joseph wrote. However, the other two members left, and Josh Dun came on board. The two went on to record and release the band's second album, Regional At Best. What makes this situation of re-recording songs different is that they didn't really have a choice. After the band signed to the record label Fueled By Ramen, they had to discontinue the selling of RAB (Regulus Arcturus Black?) because 5 of the songs (6 if you count the bonus track "House Of Gold" from the newsletter subscriber's version of RAB) from it were to be released on their 3rd album, Vessel, which was their first album on a label. While I like the Vessel versions of all of these songs better, it is still very interesting to hear all the differences between them. When comparing the different versions of these songs, the most notable difference is that the versions on Vessel sound a lot more refined and professional than the ones on Regional At Best. All of the songs had most of the parts rerecorded for the most part. The most noticeable of these changes is the drums. On RAB, the drums sound good, but they sound almost kind of weak and hollow. I don't know if that was due to the drums just sounding like that, if it was the kind of equipment used to record it, or if it was a choice that the band made to make them sound like that. The new drums on Vessel are much more full and solid. A couple songs, "Guns For Hands" and "Holding Onto You", kept the same vocal take from RAB on Vessel. The others had both the instruments and the vocals redone, such as "Car Radio" and "Trees". The new vocal takes on Vessel sound much more natural to me, and Tyler Joseph's voice sounds a lot less shrill and strained than on RAB. In my opinion, the song with the most noticeable differences is "Ode To Sleep", mainly because the synthesizers - which are the main drive of the songs - are very different from each other. There are vocal parts that were changed in the new from the old, vocal parts in the old that aren't in the new, and the new version has a more ominous feel during the verses. If you're a twenty one pilots fan and haven't yet listened to the different versions of these songs, I recommend that you do. Also, to those of you who haven't listened to TOP, check out Regional At Best (you can find all the songs on YouTube) and Vessel. They're both great albums.The most recent artist I know of to have rerecorded his past works is Sting. He released an album of songs throughout his career with the Police as well as his solo work called My Songs. The new versions stay pretty true to the originals, mostly with some minor differences. There are new effects on some instruments, and the vocals are rerecorded as well. "Shape of My Heart" doesn't have the harmonica in it like the original, the mandolin in "Fields of Gold" is taken out along with the harmonica solo, and are replaced with what sounds like a fiddle, and "Englishman In New York" has a very R&B feel to it. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to much of it at all at the point of this blog post being written, but I still wanted to include it. In addition to this, Sting has also released an album of orchestral versions of songs that he has done throughout his career. I will say that I have not listened to this album, but I feel that it would be much like Peter Gabriel's orchestral remakes - some of the songs work really well with the orchestral arrangements, and others not so much.
Some other artists that have done rerecordings of their songs include:
-Walk The Moon: 6 songs on I Want! I Want! rerecorded for their self-titled album - As much as I love Walk The Moon, I didn't want to write an entire paragraph on them to keep this post from being longer than it already is. In short, the versions of the songs that appear on both albums have a much more garageband-ish feel to them on I Want! I Want! than on their self-titled album. While they have pretty much the same instrumentations, the versions on IW!IW! are much more raw. While the new versions have a little more to them, they have a much more airy feel to them, and there is a very noticeable difference in production value to them. That's not to detract from the original versions though. They both sound really good, and are both fun to listen to.
-Bon Jovi: This Left Feels Right - On this album, Bon Jovi took some of their most famous songs and put completely new spins on them. It doesn't seem like there was really any kind of direction that they were looking to go with the style of the new versions, as they have a pretty good range to them. "Always", which originally is a power ballad about wanting a lover back, is mellowed out with acoustic guitars, a slow and steady synth, and even an accordion. "You Give Love a Bad Name" sounds like it was given the same treatment Eric Clapton gave "Layla" on Unplugged, with the song being transformed into an acoustic shuffle blues rock song with a bass line that sounds like something the Stray Cats would do. Whether you end up liking it or not, This Left Feels Right certainly is an interesting listen.
-Bon Jovi: "Prayer '94" (rerecording of "Livin' On a Prayer") from their album Cross Road - This is much different than the original. It's at half of the tempo of the original, and the instrumentation is significantly different. This version puts more emphasis on the lyrics of the song, and the instrumentation helps to highlight the stress and hardship that the lyrics speak of.
-Gordon Lightfoot: most of the songs on Gord's Gold, Vol. 2 - these updated versions of these songs have a bit more of a fullness in their sound. They were rerecorded in 1988, and the fact that they were done in the 80s definitely shows in the songs. They have more compression, more reverb, and more synthesizers than in the originals. Even though I don't listen to Lightfoot very much, I thought it was worth mentioning this one here.
I have no doubt that there are so many more rerecordings of songs that bands have done than I am aware of. Some of them are probably spectacular, some probably not so great but not bad, and some of them probably should have never been done in the first place. However, it's all up to the people listening to them that get to decide which is which, and even then there will be some division. Any way people judge them, it's always fun to listen to these new versions of these songs and see what new vision the artists had for them.
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