Friday, May 1, 2015

Battle of the Bands for 5.1.15, and getting caught up on the rest of the week.

I apologize, yet again for my lack of response to comments in my Music Monday post, and lack of return visits. You know, sometimes I just doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion blogging. But my internet has been extremely slow, spotty and intermittent for a while now and has only gotten worse, an issue which isn't being checked out by a Mediacom tech till this Monday. This week has also been otherwise absolutely crazy, what with leaving town today and having worked two back-to-back double shifts previous to this (the last one being particularly stressful). All I could do yesterday was de-stress and de-compress. And watch lots and lots of Friday Night Lights.

But I digress, because I am here today with a brand new Battle of the Bands! First, I wanted to share the incredible news that last week's #ThriftScoreThursday - the retro flamingo barware set - was featured in Trisha's Thrift Score Thursday post over at Black and White Obsession. I was so, so happy!

Battle of the Bands: On the 1st and 15th of each month, I will present two different recordings of the same song, and ask readers to cast a vote for the song they like best (or dislike least). I will come back on the 7th and 21st to cast my own vote and announce the winner. To get in on this battle action yourself, all you have to do is go to the Battle of the Bands blog to read all about it!

So, for today's #BattleOfTheBands, I present to you two covers of Journey's iconic mega-hit "Don't Stop Believin'", NEITHER of which is the cover by the Glee cast...

First up, we have Finnish metal supergroup Northern Kings with their symphonic metal cover:

And next, we have the California punk sound of Flight 409:

So who's it going to be? As usual, I feel both bands did as good a job with this cover as a band can do. Both gave it their own distinctive sound, so I guess for some it may simply come down to preference. Do you prefer the version closer to the original, or the version with a definitely different sound? Cast your vote in the comments below, and feel free to let me know why you chose the song you chose - if you so choose.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Since my internet is unstable until at least Monday AND I am going out of town for the weekend, I may not be able to get around to comments and return visits until then. But I WILL get caught up ASAP and hopefully get to all the Battles before the voting cutoff! Thanks for understanding!

14 comments:

  1. I've come to associate this song with the scene in the incredible film Monster where the characters played by Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci are in the skating rink and essentially fall for each other at that point. It was a touching use of the song.

    Both of these versions as you say are performed well. For me the version by Northern Kings is a bit too heavy handed and fast for the lyrical content. It all just doesn't come together quite right for me though it's totally listenable.

    The Flight 409 is my preference of the two. They capture more of the original sound which to me is the way the song should sound.

    I vote Flight 409.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Join us on May 4 with your post of Reflections about this year's A to Z.
    Tossing It Out

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  2. I associate this song with the 2005 World Champion Chicago White Sox... ;)

    I'm not a metal fan, so I vote for Flight 409.

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  3. Hi, Kim! Thank you very much for hopping over to my space for the maiden voyage of my BOTB series.

    Wow, this is a battle royal! I already told you how much I love gothic symphonic metal coming out of Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. The sound achieved by Northern Kings on this cover reminds me of "Maniac" the Michael Sembello song from the movie Flashdance performed by the Greek power metal band Firewind on the CD compilation Covers of Darkness. At times the lead vocal also sounds a bit like the late Ronnie James Dio. As much as I love this metal cover, I loved the Journey original and therefore cast my vote for the version by Flight 409 because it adds just a little more power to the original w/o deviating too much from it. Do you know how Flight 409 got its name? I read that there were two historic plane crashes involving a Flight 409, one in 1955 and the other in 2010, 5 years after this Fresno band was formed. Can you shed some light on that? (And thank you for leaving the cast of Glee out of this contest :)

    Thanks again for being there for me today, dear Kim. I very much appreciate your friendship and support!

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  4. RING IN A BELLE ~
    A very easy vote from me on this one.
    Make mine FLIGHT 409. (Do I really have to be strip-searched and pay $25. extra for a second small carry-on just to fly from Nevada to California?)

    To be 100% truthful, I gotta tell ya that while listening to the NORTHERN KINGS version, somewhere around the five-minute mark I literally began giggling-out-loud because the song had become so ridiculously over-the-top! (Sheesh! Just imagine how that guy would be singing if the song was about his pet dog that disappeared and was never seen again, maybe drifted out to sea, a la 'SHANNON'!)

    ~ D-FensDogG
    'Loyal American Underground'

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  5. I think I like both versions better than Journey, lol. Normally I prefer heavier metal, but I'm a bit laid back today and really enjoyed Flight 409. So they get my vote.

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  6. Well, the second version sounds too much like Journey's original and I'm not a fan. Since I do love Symphonic Metal, my vote goes to Northern Kings. ☺ I'm new around here, but am planning to become involved on a regular basis. Cheers!

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  7. My vote goes for Flight 409. The symphonic metal version was a bit too Grandiose for me.

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  8. Interesting Battle. I admit the Flight 409 version sounds a lot like the original, but the Northern Kings were a bit over the top for me. I mean this whole song is a bit over the top, but they pretty much managed to out top that.

    Give my vote to flight 409.

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  9. Oh I got for Flight 409 because it has more of the medley in it. I appreciate the beginning of the other band but when they went all "crazy" on the instruments it just started to sound like noise:)

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  10. Kim, Northern King. What can I say good about them? Ahhh, nothing?! That's harsh, I know. The instrumental arrangement was too disjointed with the vocals. The composition almost reminded me of music (you know, that big production sound kinda) used for a James Bond movie and the lead singer must have been on speed when he recorded the track. lol Anywho, vocals and music clashed big time driving me to near insanity after listening to the entire cover. Flight 409. Their arrangement was closer to the original which I liked far better than the previous version. I reckon because I am not a punk rocker, then I really did not care too much for the vocals because punk rock is all about the yelling it seems. So...I reluctantly give my vote to Flight 409. Interesting twist on a Journey classic!

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  11. Hey there- I am so glad I came across your blog! I love music and thrifting and your posts are awesome. So nice to meet you.
    If I had to choose- I would go with Flight 409. They just seemed to sound closer to the original out of both the bands.

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  12. The first one felt like a race to me. It might be a good version to use in an action sequence of a movie because the focus is on the instrumentation (IMO) over the voice, and even the lyric message of the song.

    The second one was far more listenable for me. I like that 80s music. I like Journey. I like this song. So, this was an easy vote for those flyboys... Flight 409.

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  13. Hello, all! Got all of the votes (so far) tallied up :) Am about to head out to visit all of your battles!

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  14. Too late to vote? So sorry - guess I missed cause I had two blog hops going on Friday and one Tuesday. If you change your mind... I vote Northern Kings!!!

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