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generalwitchtastemaker · 3 years

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Top 9 songs with better glee cover than original

Glee was a musical comedy-drama which aired from May 19, 2009, to March 20, 2015. It starred a lot of Broadway stars like Lea Michele, Matthew Morrison, Jenna Ushkowitz, Darren Criss and many more. The main cast also included Cory Monteith, Naya Rivera, Dianna Argon, Kevin McHale, Amber Riley, Chris Colfer, Heather Morris, Jane Lynch, Jayma Mays, Harry Shum Jr, Mark Sailing and the cast kept growing. They have guest starring from a lot of big stars like Idina Menzel, Neil Patrick Harris, Kristen Chenoweth, Jonathan Groff and many more. Having all new faces for the show (some of them had had small roles previously but no one was a big star yet), the show creators were surprised at its popularity. The show tackled a lot of societal issues like teen pregnancy, bullying, hate against LGBTQ+ and issues faced by them, sexuality, race and many more. The show mostly covered songs that were already sung by other songs (well they did take permission of the original people before featuring the song). As is the case, there are some songs which sound better in cover form than the original. So here is a list of glee songs that I think sound better than the original version (THIS IS MY OPINION):

1.Don’t Stop Believing

This song was originally performed by the band Journey in 1981 and is a rock song. It was not a hit at first but now it is considered as one of the signature songs for the band. In glee it is performed by Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz and Amber Riley. This song is considered as an anthem song for the show as this was the beginning of an era. The song has been performed a total of six time with the main six being in all of them (Except one performance missing Cory). It was first featured at the end of the pilot episode and well I think the original is good but the glee cover gives it a more crispiness and more energy than the original song. This song is one of my favorites from the show.

2.It’s Not Right but It’s Okay

This song was originally performed by Whitney Houston. I know you must be thinking how could a Whitney Houston cover song be better than the original? Well, it is not better but it is an extremely amazing cover of the song. In glee, it is performed by Darren Criss and the New Direction(the choir group’s name) as background. Darren’s voice gives the song more energy and it sounds bolder in his voice and for some reason, I felt like I was the one who was cheated on rather than Darren’s character whenever I hear this cover (Even though I don’t have a boyfriend). This cover also has a little more upbeat music than the original.

3. Jessie's Girl

This song was originally performed by Rick Springfield in 1981. In glee it is performed by Cory Monteith. According to BTS footage from the studio of the show, Cory thought that it was one of his best performances till that time (he has had a lot of amazing performances since). The background for the song to be featured in the show is that the girl he likes, Rachel (Lea Michele), is with an older boy named Jesse (Jonathan Groff) and there he sings the song for Rachel. It is a sweet performance with a little funny aspect to it as the girl he likes is really Jesse’s girl. As for the song, Cory’s voice in this makes me want to tap my feet and be Jessie’s Girl!

4.Give Up the Funk

This was originally performed by the band Parliament in 1975. In glee, it is performed by all the cast members (the New Direction). The original is not as funky as the cover. The cover is funkier and more energetic than the original. The cover makes me wanna bust a move but the original doesn’t. Plus we get a treat of listening a deep Chris Colfer voice (the raps in the start and end).

5.Teenage Dream

This was originally performed by Katy Perry. In glee, it is performed by Darren Criss and the warblers. It is the first song to feature Darren in the series. I like the glee version of this song because it is acapella and Darren made the song his own. I couldn’t have thought of a better first song for Blaine and I feel in love with him through this song. He performs this song again for Kurt in season 4 on piano which is also very good. (the gif is from the first episode; after a couple of minutes he performs the song, Blaine not Kurt)

6.Last Christmas

This was originally performed by Wham! in 1985. In glee, it is performed by Lea Michele and Cory Monteith. Although this song gets covered every Christmas, I like the glee version (and Taylor Swift version). As lea has a soprano vocal range, meaning that she can see similar an opera singer like can carry a note for a longer time than normal, she carries the notes for the song beautifully. And with Cory’s voice mixing with hers, the song seems magical!

7.Total Eclipse of The Heart

This song was originally performed by Bonnie Tyler in 1983. In glee, it is performed by Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, Jonathan Groff and Mark Sailling. The original song is not very good, the voice of the singer is not good in the song (I think she had had a throat surgery and started recording the song before complete rest, but I don’t know). All the covers of this song are good but I particularly like the glee version because it has four people singing it and if you listen closely, you can differentiate when which of the boys is singing. Their voices mix very well. Jonathan and lea’s voices, and Cory and lea’s voices mix perfectly. With Mark, it is okayish.

8.Touch A Touch A

This was originally performed by Susan Sarandon in the movie The Rocky Horror Show in 1975. In glee, it is performed by Jayma Mays. The glee version is more fun to listen as it is more upbeat and the original sounds a little monotonous.

9.We Found Love

This was originally performed by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris in 2011. In glee, it is performed by the New Direction. As in the official music video for the song, it shows drug addiction and violence. Though, the music video is good, I don’t think anyone would have thought that this song could be used in a proposal of a high school teacher to his girlfriend (guidance counselor) and is sung by a couple of high school kids in a swimming pool! the glee performance gave the song a whole new meaning.

So, hope you do check these songs out see for yourself if I am right!!!

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doomonfilm · 3 years

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Thoughts : Shiva Baby (2021)

It’s getting to be crunch time for the 2021 film release calendar (though, as always, there is a slate of releases around the Christmas season that are intriguing). Luckily, as someone who shares social media space with other film lovers, we’re getting to the point that people are starting to share their top of the year lists, which subsequently means that I get reminders about films I overlooked or forgot about. This is exactly what happened recently when my friend Brent had Shiva Baby on his list of top 2021 films. I remember this one coming out, but never got around to seeing it, but thanks to HBOMax, I got to remedy that problem.

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Like a film straight from the 1950s, albeit with updated content and context, Shiva Baby plays like a comedy of errors with a plethora of skeletons in the closet as the protagonist ammunition. Danielle, despite her youth (meant to be read as innocent ignorance), is positioned as a fabulously flawed protagonist, and during the midst of the Shiva that takes place we are served a healthy heaping of family issues, old relationships that are frowned upon by parents and family friend, and perhaps most pressing, an ongoing illicit affair that holds its own batch of surprises in tandem. The core conflict becomes a triangle with family issues as the foundation that distracts from and supports the main pillars : Maya’s feelings for Danielle that were put on hold, and Max’s sugar daddy status to Danielle in spite of the fact that he is married with a second child on the horizon. With these tension-filled supports in place, a whirlwind of toxic flirtation emerges, with participants on all sides playing hot and cold constantly against one another based on whatever the latest revelation they face may be.

With this conflict structure in place, the focus on Danielle and her protagonist journey becomes a cautionary tale about seeding lies in your life, and how fierce the reckoning can be once those seeds grow into a karmic tree. Despite Danielle’s frustrations with her parents, it would be unfair to pin her habitual lying on them, as Debbie is not afraid to be blunt with Danielle due to her sharp honesty, and Joel serves as a sort of security blanket via his “awe shucks” approach to life and socializing. It would also be easy to pin Danielle’s lying practices on her dissolved relationship with Maya, but that would be unfair to Maya, as she too seems to be a calming and supportive force in Danielle’s life that was pushed to the wayside. As her interaction with Max stands as only the latest in a long line of inward and outward facing lies, we quickly surmise that Danielle is the epicenter of her problems, and has buried herself under a mountain of lies, mistruths and half-truths that she can no longer keep track of or micromanage in the hopes of not succumbing to them in a world-shattering breakdown.

One huge positive factor that Shiva Baby has going for it is the measured use of wonderfully expressive scoring, specifically that of a 1950s horror film, which helps ratchet up the tension to comically uncomfortable levels. The cinematography helps emulate how packed and intrusively intimate the Shiva is, especially the way that it hops in-between the different character perspectives to create sightlines full of subtext that are noticed by other in-film characters the way we notice them. In terms of sound design, we get glimpses of the Robert Altman layered dialogue style phased in and out to separate the extremely revealing conversations that Danielle is forced to endure. Writer and director Emma Seligman’s writing is extremely confident in the way that it balances relatable drama with comedy that will surely unveil surprise after surprise upon repeat viewing, particularly once a viewer is familiar with the large scale game of romantic chess the main three leads play. Intentional or not, Seligman and crew seem to opt for natural light rather than manufactured light, giving the film a hefty sense of reality to the point where it would almost feel like a documentary if it weren’t so stylized and precisely edited.

Rachel Sennott is hilariously awkward the way that she attempts to stay dignified in the face of an onslaught of lies, lustful urges on multiple fronts and overbearing volumes of communication from close friends and family, all the while staying so self-centered in the midst of the grieving that her role as protagonist is wonderfully challenging for a viewer. Molly Gordon holds in the angst of unrequited love that many see in a negative light, making many of her observations and questions comically loaded as we root for her in the tug of war she plays with Danny Defarrari, who is equally funny with his opposite hot and cold energy directed at the Danielle character. Polly Draper and Fred Melamed make a wonderful couple, with Draper clearly being the one in charge while Melamed acquiesces to her take charge nature and bolsters the family image with magnetic charm. Dianna Argon gladly steps into the role of ticking time bomb, using her piercing stare and quiet judgement to fuel the blow-up audiences are both expecting and dreading. The Shiva is full of wonderful supporting characters portrayed by the likes of Jackie Hoffman, Cilda Shaur, Glynis Bell, Sondra James, Deborah Offner, Vivien Landau, Ariel Eliaz and many more.

Bottle films like Shiva Baby are extremely interesting, as they tend to present themselves more in the spirit of a play than a proper film. With that in mind, the performances are extremely bolstered, and due to the help of an intimate approach with the cinematography, we get to read every bit of thought and emotion that passes through a character’s mind via their ever-shifting and expressive faces. Shiva Baby is the kind of film where you could easily understand the lines of tension even if the sound is off, which makes the snappy writing that much more effective, as these experiences parallel in harmony and pull viewers through the relatively short film like a social roller coaster ride.

#ChiefDoomsday #DOOMonFILM #EmmaSeligman #ShivaBaby #RachelSennott #MollyGordon #DannyDefarrari #PollyDraper #FredMelamed #DiannaArgon #JackieHoffman #CildaShaur #GlynisBell #SondraJames #DeborahOffner #VivienLandau #ArielEliaz

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