Monday, March 21, 2016

Rhythms del Mundo: #BoTB Results

Well, well. I'd like to say I'm surprised by the winner here, but... the Latin version of Clocks really does swing...


Clocks: 11
Lee
Michele
Susan
Cathy
Dixie
Hilary
Robin
Stephen
Birgit
FAE
Cherdo


Hotel California: 2
Jeffrey
Elliptical Man


Purple Haze: 4
Debbie
Jacques
John
Mike


What I am surprised at is the loser: Hotel California got all of two votes.

Wow.

I'm so glad you all enjoyed this quirky Battle. Thanks so much for coming by to play and vote and comment and dissect your opinions. Next Battle is on April 1st, and although this blog isn't joining the A-to-Z April Challenge, I am participating with The Dog Blog... which means April BoTB posts will probably be short and sweet (and result posts might be a tad late)... Apologies upfront for that, and thanks for understanding :)

Speaking of the Challenge and The Dog Blog, today is the Theme Reveal hop. If you're so inclined, I'd love to see you over there... That blog needs all the help it can get, and the theme I've chosen isn't exactly going to earn me any popularity awards, so a friendly comment or two to drown out the crickets would be much, much appreciated :)

Love you all to bits! And, to prove it, I leave you with another awesome Latin crossover cover. Bet you never imagined Led Zeppelin's mega classic could sound this good ;) (Give it time, though... it takes near 2 min from the start to get fully Latinized.)

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

#BoTB: the Rhythms del Mundo edition

I'm back! The flu did me in for a couple of weeks, then life just... went a little wild. All's good though, and I'm happy to be back in the Battle of The Bands swing.

Got something a little different for you today. These aren't different versions of the same song, but rather different songs in similar covers. Perhaps you're familiar with the Rhythms del Mundo albums? As fundraising for Artists Project Earth, they create covers of pop songs in latin rhythms, very often with the original artists on vocals and some instruments. The first album, Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba, for instance, had none other than Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo (of Buena Vista Social Club fame) as main collaborators. The results were... well, pretty amazing, I thought. And now I'm curious to see what you think.

Instead of pairing the cover version with the original, I decided to showcase three of my favorite songs in their Latino incarnations and let you be the judge of which works best (or least worse) as an adaptation.

Ready?

First up is Coldplay, Clocks. (Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba, 2006)



The Killers with Hotel California... (Rhythms del Mundo: Classics, 2009)



And, finally, the weirdest (but good weird) cover I've ever heard of Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze. The fact that they kept Jimi's guitar (if not the vocals) just adds to the whole sense of unreality here. (Rhythms del Mundo: Classics, 2009)




So. What do you think? Which of these three sounds most like it was born to be Latino? Or, maybe, which one sounds least ridiculous doing the cha-cha? Let me know in the comments, and come back next Tuesday to find out how the votes played out. Also, take a hop over and visit the excellent battles being fought at these blogs, too:


Thanks for coming by, and for playing along with my weird battle today. Really looking forward to your thoughts on this one.

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