Sunday, August 22nd, 2010
"Paper Planes"
The Clientele cover M.I.A.
AV ClubThe Onion-powered A/V Club is wonderful for countless reasons, but of late one of the best is their Undercover series, which kicked off back in the Spring and has been rolling out a new episode every week. Its premise is having 25 pre-selected classic(ish) songs of the indie rock variety and as bands come through their studios, they choose one form the list to cover. While a few of the results have been poorly conceived or executed, most have ranged from entertaining to sublime, and of course have been a boon to covers bloggers like myself who aren’t above creating an audio rip or two from the videos.
Falling squarely into the “sublime” and “rippable” categories are English chamber-pop outfit The Clientele, who clearly went way outside their comfort zone in selecting M.I.A.’s Clash-sampling, Slumdog-soundtracking breakout hit, “Paper Planes” for their go and come up smelling like roses. Note the excellent use of Mel Draisey’s violin in lieu of the original’s stabbing “Straight To Hell” guitar lines and sly include of lyrics from their own “Since K Got Over Me” in the bridge. Loverly.
The Clientele, who made noises about retiring following the release of last year’s Bonfires On the Heath, haven’t made good on that yet with the impending release of their Minotaur mini-album next week. M.I.A., who also declared she was retiring following touring for Kala in Summer 2008 but the success of Slumdog Millionaire and its soundtrack kept her properly attending to her knitting and after having a baby, she returned with album number three /\/\/\Y/\ earlier this year and will be at the Sound Academy in Toronto on September 22.
MP3: The Clientele – “Paper Planes”
Video: M.I.A. – “Paper Planes”
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8/22/10 1:48 pm
Meh, the Pale Young Gentlemen orchestral pop version was ten times better. This is boring in comparison. http://www.cokemachineglow.com/podcast/4217/fantasycovers-2008
8/23/10 3:48 am
Yes, but the best one is the Davinci’s cover:
http://thecoverlovers.blogspot.com/2009/09/da-vincis-cover-mia-2009.html
8/25/10 3:36 pm
When even skilled arrangers like The Clientele can’t make this song interesting, it proves just how boring and one-dimensional “Paper Planes” really is.