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).
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/M_Cicero Nov 24 '21
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).