unfortunately, i don't know what else to do with my life
October 6, 2011 4:03 PM   Subscribe

Incredibly smooth-voiced singer/songwriter Jay Brannan covers Adele's Someone Like You on acoustic guitar. (The post title is from his website.)
posted by desjardins (23 comments total) 23 users marked this as a favorite
 
purdy
posted by leotrotsky at 4:13 PM on October 6, 2011


Talented dude, but I really want to thank him for not changing the gender pronouns in the song. Nothing bothers me more then when someone doing a cover decides to change every "him" to "her".
You're not going to catch teh gays simply because you're singing a love song to a memeber of the same sex.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 4:14 PM on October 6, 2011 [6 favorites]


I think he is actually gay, but that's neither here nor there.
posted by desjardins at 4:16 PM on October 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Heh, well good on him either way.
posted by daniel striped tiger at 4:17 PM on October 6, 2011


Wow. Thanks.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 4:30 PM on October 6, 2011


Having a guy singing this to another guy adds a terribly painful twist to this song.
posted by Anonymous at 4:34 PM on October 6, 2011


My wife and I rented Short Bus (mostly because she is a HUGE fan of 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch'), and a Jay Brannan song (Soda Shop) plays over the DVD menu. We were so enchanted by the song that we learned it, and still play it to each other all the time. He has a lovely voice, and is a very talented guy.

And in case you haven't seen Short Bus, yeah - Jay Brannan is decidedly gay.
posted by Pecinpah at 4:43 PM on October 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


And here he is covering Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass"
posted by hepta at 4:49 PM on October 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


He addresses the pronoun issue in the last question on his FAQ
posted by desjardins at 4:51 PM on October 6, 2011


Shortbus was wonderful, and he has a great voice . . .

But (and Adele has this problem live, too) almost all of the drama in the song comes from kicking up an octave for the "Don't forget me I beg, I remember you said" part. Without those high notes, the whole song's in an incredibly narrow range and it sucks all the tension out of it.

My advice for anyone covering it is to start the key low enough that you can make that jump when the chorus starts, and turn tedium into tension.
posted by skullhead at 4:52 PM on October 6, 2011 [2 favorites]


I love this song. That's all.
posted by swift at 4:56 PM on October 6, 2011


I saw him perform this live and it was really lovely. He's a wonderful performer.
posted by prefpara at 5:18 PM on October 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


Jay Brannan does a lot of covers (he even released an entire album of them).

Some highlights:
The Freshman (orig. by The Verve Pipe)
Zombie (orig. by The Cranberries)
Man in the Mirror (orig. by Michael Jackson)
Rehab (orig. by Amy Winehouse)
posted by schmod at 5:34 PM on October 6, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've been a fan of his since he started out on YT. LOVE his voice and his original songs too. I hope he finds happiness one day. I hope I do too lol.
posted by 1000monkeys at 6:20 PM on October 6, 2011


Thanks to this thread, I just bought 2 of his covers on iTunes (Good Mother + now I finally have an official, high-quality copy of Say It's Possible to replace my naughty youtube audio rip). :-)

Also: you have to watch his cover of Nicki Minaj's Super Bass and his incredibly funny mashup of Str8 Outta Compton (I won't ruin it by telling you what song he mashed it with). (NSFW language, if it matters)
posted by 1000monkeys at 8:20 PM on October 6, 2011


I've seen some of his other stuff, and it's usually very good. But I can SWEAR I hear some pitch-correction autotune action going on here and there. The changes in octaves sounds digital. Am I alone in hearing that?
posted by revmitcz at 10:16 PM on October 6, 2011


Whoa, he looks so much like one of the guys who lives in my neighbourhood I did a double take when I first clicked on the video. Anyway, I love his cover of Joni Mitchell's California played on a cardboard dulcimer! Very cool. And not everyone can hit those high notes like Joni (actually, I don't think she can hit them like she used to either).

I've seen some of his other stuff, and it's usually very good. But I can SWEAR I hear some pitch-correction autotune action going on here and there. The changes in octaves sounds digital. Am I alone in hearing that?

Actually, I kind of thought so too (only in the link to the Adele song, not to the Joni Mitchell song), but I wondered if I was imagining it.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:33 PM on October 6, 2011


No I definitely hear pitch correction in there too, unless we're both crazy. It's subtle but still quite distracting for me.
posted by TwoWordReview at 10:35 PM on October 6, 2011


He's very pretty, isn't he.
posted by roger ackroyd at 1:41 AM on October 7, 2011


Wow, I haven't heard an actually talented singer in ages. He's wonderful! Love his marvelous voice, his intelligence, sense of humor. Such a treat. Thanks for this post.
posted by nickyskye at 6:13 AM on October 7, 2011


Entered " 'someone like you' cover" in YouTube and only received 18,600 hits. Let's get busy, people.
posted by FrankBlack at 3:52 PM on October 7, 2011


Any such pitch correction on a single-mic recording like this would also distort the guitar tone – and that just doesn't happen here. So I'm pretty sure what you're hearing is simply what he does naturally when he's ramping up to a higher vocal range.
posted by arm's-length at 10:47 PM on October 8, 2011


Wow. His cover of The Freshman is AWESOME. As is the OP cover. Very talented fella.
posted by antifuse at 7:49 AM on October 25, 2011


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