Mar 172010
ZRK2o3EkOUw]
Watch the above YouTube to hear (or, most likely, rehear) NRBQ‘s classic “Ridin’ in My Car.”
Then, when you’re finished with that, click here for a stream of the new cover by She & Him.
Your thoughts please.
ZRK2o3EkOUw]
Watch the above YouTube to hear (or, most likely, rehear) NRBQ‘s classic “Ridin’ in My Car.”
Then, when you’re finished with that, click here for a stream of the new cover by She & Him.
Your thoughts please.
The faster, lighter pace and super-down-to-earth delivery of NRBQ’s version is much better. It rings truer to the sentiments of the song, the feeling of driving in a car, etc.
The She & Him version isn’t terrible, but it’s got a bit of a lugubrious pace, which isn’t helped by the amped-up, purposely sloppy drum sound. It may have been a tad better if the music had been accompanied by a fanboy video of stills of “She.” When I hear this version, with Zoey Deschanel singing, I don’t feel like the singer is someone I’d want in the driver’s seat.
Bingo, Mr. Mod! The dragging drums on the remake pretty much sink it for me. Too much reverb on them too. And Zooey doesn’t really sing this like she cares, or even likes the song very much.
M. Ward sings the second verse. Does that guy ever sing like he’s actually awake?
M. Ward may be in need of a Please Explain piece. I know he’s a good musician and all, but is he bringing any secret sauce?
Yeah, the cover doesn’t really seem to add anything. It might be nice to see them play it live but the recording seems fairly pointless.
Mod hits the nail on the head. Everything about that re-make just sounds… flabby, and morose. And the song is *not* a sad, morose song. It’s wistful, which is a totally different emotion. Wistfulness can be an almost happy thing. This song needs to be airy and free-sounding; it’s about riding in a car, for crying out loud. These guys make it sludgey and dreary. Not good!
Even the guitar solo is the same! What’s the point? The only thing I see good about this is that it would hopefully bring the hipsters back to the original version.
The backing vocals seem amateurish, to me – in addition to saying ditto to all above comments.
I’ve never seen this woman in a movie. Does she ‘act’ in the same emotionless way she ‘sings’? Her voice seems to be relying on her looks, and it doesn’t really work.
And yeah the NRBQ version sure does seem peppy after listening to She & Him sleepwalk through the song.
Pretty ghastly. But, forgive me, the original doesn’t thrill me, either.
I was pretty surprised by the She & Him version. I didn’t hate it, but only because they got the guitar solo tone down so perfectly. Overall, it really is too slow, and HVB is dead on – NRBQ just has such a more visceral take. You can really tell that one of these bands wrote this song, and another just picked it to play.
Hey, I don’t even like the NRBQ remake in the YouTube video here, I like the original version from ALL HOPPED UP, not this version with the boomier drums which I first heard on a best-of, UNCOMMON DENOMINATORS. And don’t even start me on the HER & IT version. I like Deschanel as an actress, I like a couple of the early M.Ward records, but their act together is just anti-musical to me. Her vocals sound like she learned the lyrics phonetically from a foreign language. And that draggy beat? A real musician should be standing in the place she’s taking up, instead of this glorified celebrity pop record, the type Patty Duke or Leonard nimoy made so long ago.
Go, db!!! It’s about time you call bullshit on something beside one of my opinions:)
M. Ward must be sitting on some highly compromising photos of influential people in the music business, cause I don’t understand how else he’s made it. This guy makes me almost forgive Sufjan Stevens for his bargain basement rendition of “Into the Mystic” era Van Morrison. Almost.
The way she sings it it sounds like we would be ridin’ in her car straight to the Urban Outfitters at the mall.
I took a couple of young coworkers over to see M. Ward at one of those free Radio concerts a while back. I only knew what I had read about him and had only heard a couple of slices of songs in an NPR interview, but if it’s something that holds the even a remote possibility of being interesting, we go. Anyway, one girl, Ashley, a real sweetheart with a sunny disposition, was totally apopleptic with fury at his performance. She kept saying, “I can tell he’s a good musician, but why does he want to sound like that?” She was mainly referring to his mumbling singing, shambling performance and reverb drenched murkiness of the band. She was certainly on the mark with her criticisms, but it was still very funny to see her get so worked up about it.
I hated it, but then again, I’m of the opinion that covers are generally useless, UNLESS they are a rethink of the original, like DEVO’s version of ‘Satisfaction’, or John Cale’s take on ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ (or Nixon’s Head’s “Jailhouse Rock-A-Bubba”) – that type of thing. Unless something else is added, changed or taken away, in some manner, what’s the point, really? There are, of course, rare exceptions; this definitely is not one. Pointless. And badly produced, to boot.
“…Volume Two features a lot more She than Him. These are, after all, Deschanel’s winsome, lilting songs — she wrote them all, with Ward acting in more of a producer/arranger role — so it’s no surprise that she looms large.”
This says she wrote the song. Huh? How does this happen?
And, FWIW, the she/him version sounds like something the Partridge Family would do.
Good call, dale evans – and welcome aboard! I noticed that sloppy writing on the NPR site too.
EXCELLENT call re: the Partridge Family! That chuckle will last me the next couple of hours, I’m sure.
Am stuck at the Gap while wifey shops…just heard the She and Him version of Big Al’s classic…man I just love that tune I don’t care who tries to do it. Yeah they’re lame compared to the Q but lightened my afternoon compared to rest of the shitty Gap soundtrack.
Welcome aboard, dumdum. Did you actually send this message from some fancy iDevice, from the Gap? That would be cool and worth noting.
Yep I sure did.
Heard the cover, googled it to find out it was Zooey D, stumbled onto RTH, and had to chime in, all while sitting on my ass in the Gap. And the wife looks bitchin in her new jeans.