Saturday, June 27, 2009

the end of the world

Every once in a while you hear a new artist who wholly and completely apes the sound of someone else. OK, it might be more than every once in a while, haha but regardless, I will say that most of the time I don't particularly enjoy the artist or their music doing the copying because they aren't as talented as the artist they so clearly are influenced by. This is usually borne out most in the lyrics. Good lyrics always enhance a great melody. Sophomoric ones always ruin one. And you don't necessarily know until you hear it. You just know when you do because you can't help but avoid paying attention to them since they are so glaringly bad.

But there are exceptions. One is Matt Alber. I came across a video for his song "End Of The World" last night that gave me goosebumps. Alber clearly wants to be Rufus Wainwright. Stylistically, thematically, dramatically you name it... this is a song you can totally envision Wainwright singing. Alber and Wainwright sound EXACTLY the same and Alber's inflection, tone and phrasing are dead ringers for Rufus.

But the song is SOOOOO amazingly good that I absolutely don't care. If you are going to ape someone else's sound you could do a lot worse than Rufus Wainwright. Sweepingly beautiful, achingly crushing and hair-raisingly good, I am nearly brought to tears when Alber's melancholy voice soars to the heavens at the end of the chorus. It's dramatic, heartbreaking and stunningly good.

So you get a pass on this one Matt Alber. Kudos for writing a song I have to believe Rufus would have been happy to have written and performed himself.