Introduction
I recently discovered a band called VoicePlay, an a capella group that posts covers on YouTube. They have been posting since 2012, but recently started to gain fame and have been rising in popularity for the last few years. The band has lost and acquired different members since they first started, and they also feature other singers on their channel, but the main four are Geoff Castelucci, Eli Jacobson, Cesar De La Rosa, and Layne Stein. These four singers each pursue an individual career apart from the band, but they are also constantly working together to provide new content for their fans.
As far as I can find, VoicePlay has yet to post an original song of theirs. They are solely working on recording music by other artists, adding their own sound and unique voices to each song. Layne is the main percussionist with incredible beat boxing skills, Eli and Cesar both have stunning ranges and control over their voices, Geoff provides bass and has mastered the art of subharmonics (which is a way to sing very low, as you'll hear in the songs below).
I appreciate artists who cover songs because it gives the audience an opportunity to hear the song in a different light. Oftentimes, I like the cover better than the original because it may be softer and more natural sounding. There is such a thing as an overproduced song, which is why bands like VoicePlay should continue to do what they do. It may also be that some singers have phenomenal talent without the ability to produce an original song, which is perfectly admirable.
The Songs
The two songs I would like to show you are "Nothing Else Matters," originally performed by Metallica, and "I Can't Make You Love Me," originally performed by Bonnie Raitt.
"Nothing Else Matters" is a rock song from the early 90s, featuring a grungy voice and an electric guitar. It is sang with great passion to accompany the heavy lyrics, starting soft and building volume as the song progresses. VoicePlay covers a very similar version of the song, and does not take away from many of its qualities. They begin quiet, building intensity in preparation for the guitar solo, which they substitute with Layne's violin. Though the two performances are similar, VoicePlay seems to add more layers to the song, and the overall sound is much cleaner than Metallica's version. The harmonic texture that they give is quite beautiful and certainly adds to depth of the lyrics.
"I Can't Make You Love Me" came out the same year that "Nothing Else Matters" did, in 1991. It belongs to a much different genre, however, so the two songs sound almost nothing alike. Bonnie Raitt's version of "I Can't Make You Love Me" is emotional and almost whimsical. The texture of the song remains somewhat the same throughout, with her voice accompanying soft instrumentals. VoicePlay's version starts much quieter, opening with tender vocals followed by Cesar's smooth voice in the first verse. Similarly to their cover of "Nothing Else Matters," they once again slowly build intensity and then fade away as the song ends. It's a bit slower than Bonnie Raitt's performance, and while both versions are emotional, the cover seems to have more of an accepting sadness rather than an angry sadness. And of course, there is a lot more going on in the cover harmonically, since there are five voices instead of one. I think I like the cover better, but both are unique and I suppose it depends on the day.
Conclusion
What are your thoughts about the role of the performer? Did you like the original versions of each song better, or did you prefer the cover? As I said before, I think that covers give us an opportunity to hear the song differently, by perhaps hearing an emphasis on something we hadn't noticed before, or by simply hearing the song with different voices and instruments.
Sources
Bentley, Lisa. “VoicePlay - Once Upon an Ever After / Album Reviews / More Than the Music.” More Than the Music, 4 July 2012, www.mttm.uk/voiceplay-once-upon-an-ever-after.
Hale, James. “YouTube Millionaires: Meet the Fab Five Behind VoicePlay.” Tubefilter, 13 Jan. 2022, www.tubefilter.com/2022/01/07/youtube-millionaires-voiceplay.
Wikipedia contributors. “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” Wikipedia, 8 Mar. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Can%27t_Make_You_Love_Me.
Hi Sophia,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing "Voiceplay" I had never heard of this group before. For my blog post, I wrote about the acapella group Pentatonix. it was cool to be able to compare and contrast the group I researched and yours. I noticed one thing both groups had in common was that specific singers specialized in certain things in order to make a cohesive sound.