DON'T STOP THE MUSIC

Jamie Cullum

Well now, here’s something a bit different. A song that happens to be a cover version of a song that extensively sampled another song that borrowed the riff that its successor used from yet another song. And they say there’s no originality in pop music these days. Now then, as is the way with Jamie Cullum, when he does a cover version he goes to the trouble of putting his own spin on it, so the basic tune’s still here (just about) and the lyrics, but everything else has been thrown in the bin and replaced with jazz. Nice. The strange thing is, this song works really well in its new surroundings, and even though there’s a piano solo that goes on a bit, I’m going to let him off on that score because let’s be honest, extended solos are part of what jazz is all about. Normally, jazz music and me have a love-hate relationship – most of the time I love listening to other things and hate listening to jazz – but this isn’t too bad. It doesn’t go on for ages, and it’s a complete re-invention of Rihanna’s single; well, if you’re going to do a cover you might as well make it worth the effort, and he has. That last point may seem like a minor thing, but if a band like Westlife still haven’t grasped it after nearly 11 (that’s ELEVEN) years then it’s obviously not as easy as it looks.

AUDIENCE

Cold War Kids

Until the Cold War Kids polish up their sound, they’ll never make it big, but if they do polish up their sound they won’t actually sound half as good as they do now. Awkward situation to be in, isn’t it? Take this song, for instance. It’s probably very simple to play, there’s nothing complex about it at all, in fact the trickiest bit to play is probably where the drums start stuttering a bit in the middle. In addition to that, they’re using the bare minimum of instruments for the minimum amount of time necessary – one of these days somebody’s going to do an encyclopedia of music and under the word "minimalistic" there’s going to be a big picture of Cold War Kids. However, having said all that, what they do play they play well. Audience only sounds simple because with other people in charge, this song would’ve been overcomplicated and cleaned up and mixed to within an inch of its life... thing is though, it would’ve lost its heart and soul if it had. I’ll happily take songs like this over anything by the Jonas Brothers any day of the week.