Coldplay

I guess everybody else in the world but me knows about the band Coldplay.

I'd heard the name, and YouTubed a few of their songs -- but I wasn't taken.

But then I heard the song "Viva la Viva", liked it, did a web search -- and then discovered that it was by Coldplay.

So then I read the Wikipedia page -- and discovered that they did the song "Clocks", and that backwards music video for "The Scientist".  Ah!  OK.  So I picked up their Viva la Vida or Death and All of His Friends album.  Pretty good.


It reminds me of in my youth, when my church youth group was on a road trip, and I listened to a Cars album -- probably Heartbeat City -- on cassette, on a friend's walkman.  With just about every song, I realized, "Ah!  This song I've been hearing on the radio -- it was by The Cars!"


It just takes me a while to pick up on these things.


--GG

The Cars cover in Cars 2

My kids have the DVD of the movie Cars 2. As I walked past the t.v. as they were watching it, I noticed that it included a cover of the song ''You Might Think'', by the '80s new wave band The Cars. Clever! I wonder how many people picked up on that.

I presume they used a cover version rather than the original because it costs less: when you use the original recording, you have to pay songwriting **and** performance royalties; if you re-make the song, you just pay for the songwriting.


For you youngsters that aren't ''up'' on The Cars, here's some examples. Note that my choices from YouTube tended towards their live performances. Sorry -- some volume differences between the clips.


"You Might Think"





"Just What I Needed"




"Tonight She Comes"





"My Best Friend's Girl"




From a musician's point of view, what I find interesting is that even though Ric Ocasek (probably misspelled) -- the tall skinny dark-haired guy -- was the main songwriter, that for some of the songs Benjamin Orr (the blond bassist) did lead vocals. Given their similar vocal timbre, I wonder why they did that.


--GG