Tag Archives: music reviews

“Love Song For No One” (John Mayer Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

I have found that there are very, very few artists that I love who started playing music any later than the early t0 mid- 1990s. John Mayer has been an exception, at least up until his whole “I’m into blues/I’m very serious/I have long hair” phase. I fell in love with Room For Squares, found Inside Wants Out charming, and couldn’t stop listening to Heavier Things. Unfortunately, I found Continuum to be unimpressive on the whole. And don’t even get me started on Try!

So, for this session, I went back in time to “Love Song For No One,” hoping to conjure up a time when I loved Mayer and his work. I think his first album is often dismissed, as though every song were “Your Body is a Wonderland” — which I’m man enough to admit I really enjoy…

Without further ado, here’s my take on “Love Song For No One,” a version that took me many takes before I was happy enough to release it. I’m still not entirely happy with it, but my voice was scratchy and I did my best. Besides, you know what they say — a session a day… keeps Chris, Jim, and Jeff going crazy? 🙂

See you next session!



Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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Best Album Covers of 2012: A Weekend Review Special Edition

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By Chris Moore:

The BEST ALBUM COVERS of 2012

 

Even in an age of increasingly digital delivery of music media, album covers continue to be an integral piece of the vision for an album.  In a sense, they are rapidly becoming the primary, if not sole, physical/visual component of the album.  That being said, it also feels like, in many cases, album covers have fallen to the wayside as hastily composed and inspired out of necessity.  Nevertheless, there are always some that stand out of the crowd; this year, there are five that deserve to be honored. 

 

1)  The Sound of the Life of the Mind – Ben Folds Five

2)  Ten Stories – mewithoutYou

3)  Those Around Us – Jim Fusco

4)  The Idler Wheel… – Fiona Apple

5)  Born and Raised – John Mayer

 

Honorable Mention:

Glad All Over – The Wallflowers

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“How’s It Going To Be” (Third Eye Blind Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to another Laptop Session, your source for quality acoustic cover songs! I’ve been taking it easy this past week, recording songs that I know and love, from bands I’m very comfortable with, such as the Band and Bob Dylan. This week, however, I’m endeavoring to expand my range a bit, and I think I have. I have a busy week coming up, as it’s the last week of school before summer, and there’s papers and exams a-plenty to be graded. To compensate for that, I recorded my three video blog entries today, which will cover me for today, Original Wednesday (when we songwriters get to showcase our own material!), and next Saturday.

My contribution to the Laptop Sessions cover songs blog is “How’s It Going To Be,” one of the singles from the same Third Eye Blind album that boasted their hit “Semi-Charmed Life.” This is a great song and very much conducive to being translated acoustically for this session. It was a fun experience, as I don’t think I’d ever fully grasped what the words to the verses were! But, I broke out my copy of the album — yay for buying physical copies rather than digital downloads! — and consulted the booklet, and I was in business.

This is the best way to record a cover song, in my personal opinion — unless you have an incredibly reliable memory for these things, like Jim “iPod for a brain” Fusco. Go to the original and play along, check your chords and tune, and then go off on your own. It was a bit challenging, as the chorus is different each time it’s played, not to mention that there’s a middle part that is practically shouted on the studio recording. I did the best I could with it, and I’m pretty happy with the outcome. To be truthful, there is one flubbed line by yours truly in the middle, but the middle is difficult to understand to begin with AND the words for that part are excluded from the lyrics section of the booklet! Not cool…

Well, I’m back to grading papers after having a fairly enjoyable couple hours here recording songs for the week. I can’t wait for my Original Wednesday, when I will play a song from my very first album working with a band, and Saturday will bring an artist that I have not covered before, but Jeff and/or Jim has. Any guesses?

Check out the Laptop Sessions archive for more excellent sessions from Jeff…

See you next session!



Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“Easy” (Jeff Copperthite Original Cover)

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Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to Original Wednesday!  It’s Jeff today giving you an original song for our Wednesday edition.  It’s our favorite day of the week here.

Today I bring you yet another video from my 2008 album “Greenlight”.  The song is the last track of the album and is called “Easy”.  Jim was so kind to enlighten me that on Greenlight, I have two songs that are also Barenaked Ladies songs.  I think i’ll have to see if they are coverable songs and do them for kicks.

Of the songs I wrote for Greenlight, this was the first one I wrote in 2007, which was 2 years after another song on the album (“$500).  It set off a nice set of songwriting for me – probably the best of my life.  This song got written in two parts – 1st verse while I was in the old apartment, 2nd verse while in our new condo.  It was also the song that convinced Jim that I should consider recording a new album (which happened thankfully – that was a lot of fun).

And yes, if I can get some more solid songs together, another album in the future is certainly a possibility.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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