Monday 21 May 2012

song reinterpretation

Unlike the previous post that looked at the evolution of a track, this post will look at one track that has seen various degrees of reinterpretation, however, each iteration has retained the key elements of the original track. The take-away here is that strong melodies, hooks, and musical lines can transcend genres and give a track a strong, yet distinct fingerprint. Each version uses the identity of the original to reinterpret the track within a new genre.

Original track: 'After Laughter (Comes Tears)' - Wendy Rene. The original youtube version has a ton of distortion, for some reason, so this one has less views but sounds better. (The original is here )



 Ahhhh, the Wu-Tang Clan!! This one was actually pretty popular among hip-hop circles...

 

For fun, building on the Wu-Tang version, here's some dancehall riddim:



I can't find much background on this next version. Here's the description from youtube: "Lykke Li and El Perro Del Mar sing "After Laughter Come Tears" in San Francisco, California, USA"


There's something I love about the idea of this. A spontaneous street performance - live music can be one of the most amazing and magical things we experience, that is, when it is not totally commodified and manufactured. I think that's why I like this so much...



And last, a tech house group called Filtertypen covered/remixed the track. I like their interpretation, and honestly can't believe how many views this has.