Best Coast Performs Fleetwood Mac's 'Rhiannon'
Best Coast covers Fleetwood Mac's 1975 smash "Rhiannon" on a forthcoming tribute album — a task which clearly requires quite a bit of reverence, to the point where singer Bethany Cosentino even channels Stevie Nicks' warbling rasp. And, while the song's familiar guitar line is replaced with a dramatically simplified piano melody, the result captures the melancholic yearning of "Rhiannon" — its mystical side, its understanding of unattainable love — without losing the beach-bound giddiness of Best Coast's simple, shiny sound.
Check it out at NPR.org
Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac, out August 14
Dear God, it's just horrible. If she was on American Idol she wouldn't make it past the first week. So far all the tracks from this tribute CD are pretty bad. Don't think many Mac fans will be interested after they hear some of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree...HORRIBLE! Although the Think About Me cover may be the best cut on this tribute album..
ReplyDeleteBeyond horrible
ReplyDeleteThat is a disgrace
ReplyDeleteShe should have used a toy piano since she has the interpretive skills of a 3 year old. Maybe a little kazoo would have classed it up?
ReplyDeleteWhy do people with no musical talent try to play instruments and sing? This is seriously just about the worst thing I have ever heard in my entire life.
ReplyDeleteyeah, awful. I do like some of her music though.
ReplyDeleteClearly I am a minority. It is so totally different from the FM classic that it is almost a new song. if I had never heard the original it would be a happy summer song. Is that so wrong? Loving Think about me.
ReplyDeleteOMG my ears! lol......seriously, I hope that was just a demo and not the final version. That piano playing was pedestrian at best, so boring. This cover has none of the power and drive of the original.
ReplyDeletean excellent voice! However, her version of Rhiannon is not happening for me...the chord structure isn't right either....
ReplyDeletethis is the "bad lounge act" version of the song - where's the mystery? where's the sensuality? where's the evocation of night and flight? and where's the goddam guitar riff????
ReplyDeleteI agree with MALCOM nothing will really ever compare to the original!!!So why try and do that style,I am glad she changed it up and I actually like a lot of the phrasing in it.No one and I mean no one will ever be able to touch the songs in the same style as Stevie sings the originals in, or the the fab five played them in(((kinda like Mary J.(I DON'T MUCH O-BLIGE HER MUSIC)trying to cover STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN and her people thinking she did something great (not even close)!!!!!.For covering Fleetwood Mac especially Rhiannon the first song and live performance that really put them all on the map well on their rise to superstardom; and established Stevie as a stand out star.So legendary that people have named their kids after it etc., I am glad that they did not do it like the original because no matter what it would not even come close.And people would be slamming that too.I do however, kinda agree with the comments about the piano parts!!!!
ReplyDeleteConsider it this way. If RHIANNON has now reached the status of "standard", as I believe LANDSLIDE has, then it's subject to different arrangements and different interpretations, just as a Gershwin or Cole Porter song would be. However, that doesn't mean that ANY new arrangement is good. Since it does concern a mythical woman who "rings like a bell through the night", "rules her life like a bird in flight" and "is like a cat in the dark", it would seem to require some sort of ethereal delivery. This interpretation has none of that. I understand that the narrator of the song isn't Rhiannon herself, but Stevie sings it as if she were. If that's going to change dramatically, then who is this new narrator and from what perspective is she/he singing about Rhiannon? This singer has little to no personality - I don't think these issues have even entered her mind. Also, the opening 13 notes of the guitar riff (divided into two phrases of 7 & 6 notes) is central to the melody. This version completely excludes it. Even if you did that part with another instrument, I feel it needs to be included for the song to still be RHIANNON. Otherwise, you're just using the lyrics and ditching a key part of the melody. In any case, though this girl can sing okay, the instrumentation is horribly amateurish and unimaginative.
ReplyDeleteTerrible cover...just brutal. Seriously a Fleetwood Mac cover with that instrumentation? Really?
ReplyDelete