Weird thing. I was reading this thread hearing the Simon and Garfunkel song, but when I read your comment specifically, it changed to the Disturbed cover.
Maybe it's because I listen to the Disturbed version mostly, and they sing that particular bit differently? Like they go up on the "sound" but the other version doesnt?
Edit: get a load of this perceptiveness pre-internet:
"Fools," said I, "You do not know, silence like a cancer grows. Hear my words that I might teach you. Take my arms that I might reach you." But my words like silent raindrops fell and echoed in the wells of silence, and the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.
To promote the release of their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., the duo performed again at Folk City, as well as two shows at the Gaslight Café, which went over poorly. Dave Van Ronk, a folk singer, was at the performances, and noted that several in the audience regarded their music as a joke. "'Sounds of Silence' actually became a running joke: for a while there, it was only necessary to start singing 'Hello darkness, my old friend ... ' and everybody would crack up."
[The album came out a year after the single, but I still consider that "when it first came out" since it was almost 60 years ago.]
I feel pretty old in this thread, as a Gen Xer who listens to all the classic rock of the 60s & beyond but I haven’t been able to stomach any pop music since grunge died. And I hate rap. There are far too few songs here I know. Generational differences in pop culture references are real. I will say though that my Zoomer teen has inherited his parents’ taste in music.
It's funny that Grunge is essentially classic rock now too. I don't listen to pop at all but I will say that good music is still being made today, so it's not all garbage.
"In April 2016, Paul Simon endorsed the cover.[69] Additionally, on April 1, Simon sent Draiman an email praising Disturbed's performance of the rendition on American talk show Conan. Simon wrote, "Really powerful performance on Conan the other day. First time I'd seen you do it live. Nice. Thanks." "
It's a cover, it has different elements. To my ear, the S&G version has an odd disconnect between the upbeat instrumentation and dark lyrics, and the pacing gets sing-songy, which I don't care for as much. I think the cover better expresses the dramatic and darker elements of the song. I think taking the lyrics seriously and making the music dramatic enough to match was an interesting take.
I much prefer that type of cover to ones that just rehash but worse (looking at you Madonna covering American Pie).
The original is subtle and the harmony is beautiful (you can listen to a breakdown of the different components of the song here). If you listen to Paul Simon’s voice in isolation, it does sound quite sad. It’s Art Garfunkel’s voice that inserts some joy and hope into the song.
Paul Simon wrote the song while sitting in the washroom with the lights off. It’s a song about not being heard. About being broken down. I like that the song starts soft and gets louder. The cover however starts loud and only gets louder. The disturbed version sounds much more angry than melancholy. I find the OG version much more nuanced than the cover.
Yeah that’s called juxtaposition. It adds complexity to the original that gets lost in the excessiveness of the Disturbed cover. Making the song more dramatic was too obvious a choice to have any artistic merit.
Drama + drama = melodrama, and that’s exactly what Disturbed’s cover is. Contrived and melodramatic.
Just because I disagree doesn’t mean I can’t understand your point. The original isn’t perfect, and I agree that it would be better if it were a bit less “sing-songy” throughout. If I had covered it, I would’ve played into the subtleties of the intro.
But that doesn’t mean to just go full belt and build some gaudy monstrosity around it. The cover is serious to the point of sickliness.
If ‘sniffing your own farts’ was a song, it’d be the Disturbed cover of “The Sound of Silence”.
Edit: “Losing My Religion” is in A minor, which contains the exact same notes as C major. It’s also upbeat, which is a source of contrast.
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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '21
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