Covers, especially of popular or iconic songs can be a tricky thing. Do it too well and you are just essentially a cover band but reinvent it and you are an artist. In the pantheon of artistic reinterpretations of popular songs, FIDLAR's take on Cheryl Crow's 1996 Smash "If It Makes You Happy" is easily one of the best covers every recorded. For one thing it starts deceptively sweet, so sweet, in fact that you wonder if this is even FIDLAR at all. I mean is that really Zach softly cooing the verses or is it Max, Brandon?? The whispy echoes and the upfront pearly guitars feel dreamy as Hell.
Of course, this is FIDLAR and Hell is the operative word as the switch is flipped on the chorus and the dream becomes heavy and caustic. Twisted, yes, but still back behind the fray there lies a dreamy underbelly of really nice tones that shift back into the sweetness. The dissonant guitar is brilliant. The result feels schizophrenic. The most pop of pop songs turns into Pet Sounds meets Marilyn Manson. Fucking brilliant Fidlar. This will go down in musical history as one of the best covers ever created.
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Robb Donker
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