The Scientist

Coldplay - The Scientist

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Things have really slowed down for the upcoming holidays and I know I'm looking forward to spending time with my family and shopping on Black Friday.

I'm going to try and clear out my pending album review (I have already posted two reviews), so you may start seeing, if not more reviews from me in the next few days (although I always try and mix it up with fun stuff like this "Cover Lover" post.)

I was listening to my iPod Shuffle and this version of Coldplay's "The Scientist" came on by a woman singer and I had no idea who it was. The problem with the Shuffle is that it doesn't have a display so I had to remember to look up this song on my iTunes when I got home.

Natasha Bedingfield – The Scientist

Turns out that the singer is called Natasha Bedingfield, a pop singer, whose good looks probably lends herself to selling records. I found out that she used to be in a Christian band called The DNA Algorithm (rhythm? haha?).

Her song appears on the 2-disc Radio 1's Live Lounge compilation, which was released this year (October 16th) in the UK.

What I like about her cover song is that it's absolutely in the tone (if you can call it that) in an R&B/Popular, complete with moaning and whoa-whoa and "yeah baby". Too funny!

Avril Lavigne - The Scientist (live)

Apparently Live Lounge DJ, Jo Whiley, loves the original Coldplay song so much that she's also suckered Avril Lavigne and Eamon to cover that song - but unfortunately I wasn't able to find any details of the Eamon's version.

I've previously mentioned Avril a few times on W♥M, and really, she doesn't need any introduction.

The first thing about Avril's version is her opening line: "Come up to meet you" is transformed to "Come up to meetcha". It's laughable, but I'm glad to see that later on in the song that she retains "pro-gress" and not as "prog-ress".

Overall, I did actually enjoy her cover song a lot.

Aimee Mann - The Scientist (Live)

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Aimee Mann, the singer from 'Til Tuesday (I know I felt gutted for not including a song from them on W♥M's "Daze of the Week") released a live version of "The Scientist" on the special edition of Lost in Space (2002).

Her last CD is called One More Drifter in the Snow and was released last year. She's currently going to set course on a second annual Christmas tour, which ends right before Christmas. See more details on United Musicians.

This live version is pretty faithful to the original. There are male backup singers, which I'm beginning to see a trend on all the live songs here: Piano with backup vocals.

Trivia: 'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry" song was said to be inspired by Michael Hausman (the other member of Til Tuesday) and Aimee Mann's breakup.

Johnette Napolitano & Danny Lohner - The Scientist Johnette Napolitano - the Scientist

Did you know Concrete Blonde's bassist is a solo artist? Her name is Johnette Napolitano and she recently teamed up with Danny Lohner to record "The Scientist" for the Wicker Park Soundtrack.

"The Scientist" also appears on her live album, Scarred, which was released May of this year. The live version starts off by herself with an acoustic guitar, but then in the middle of the song it starts to pick up: a harmonica slows in, then pianos and then drums and backup singers! The live version is a real treat to hear.

You can find out more about her on johnettenapolitano.com or her myspace.

Incidentally, the Wicker Park soundtrack also feature "Against All Odds" by The Postal Service, which you can hear at tygress.vox - but I disagree that it's awful. It's very different and that's what I like about cover songs.

MIT Logarhythms - The Scientist

MIT Logarhythms (get it? "rhythms") are a 12-piece a cappella band, who all met while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They seem pretty clever guys, for instance, their logo are wooden logs (haha) and they call their backup singers "twigs".

Looking at their 6 albums, all the songs are mostly covers. Don't let the a capella tag fool you - there are percussion and music in their recordings (which actually sounds very clean and professional).

The cover of "The Scientist" is pretty faithful and the twist is obviously the backup twig singers. I think the best cover on their Natural album is "Somebody's Baby" which is a little faster-tempo. You can hear the original Jackson Browne and Phantom Planet's version of the song on Cover Lover.

You can buy their CDs for $15 from www.mitlogs.com.

Finally, here's MAD TV's parody of the song called "The Narcissist". The video parodies the famous Memento inspired video. The Chris Martin character is played by Michael McDonald, who did a wonderful job at walking backward.

Best part of the video: "What the hell are you doing, white boy???"

If you think I'm missing any other covers of "The Scientist", please let me know, I'm more than happy to ammend and add this post. I know that Belinda Carlisle  sings this song on ITV's "Baby One More Time" television show, but I have not been able to track that down.  I would really love to hear her version - so if you have it, please let me know.

 11/20/2007 13:13:02  vu my♥posts vu@weheartmusic.com www.weheartmusic.com