Tag Archives: music reviews

The BEST “SHOULD’VE BEEN THE SINGLE”’s of 2011 (The Year-End Review Awards)

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By Chris Moore:

Every year, a significant percentage of music listeners base their playlists and knowledge of music on the tracks chosen as singles.  The obvious drawback here is that these tracks are chosen based on the likelihood they will be radio hits.  In short, the songs that fit the formula prescribed by the labels will be chosen, and the other – oftentimes superior – songs are left unnoticed.

Now, I understand why this is the process; I really do.  Those who like albums are left to take our chances on the LPs.  However, even in choosing the singles, the powers-that-be often surprise me.  The following three tracks are the songs that I feel should have been the singles for their respective albums instead of the ones that were actually chosen.  I’ve listed out the songs that were chosen as singles, and you’ll find that, in a couple cases, there are three songs that have been chosen over the song I feel is most single-worthy.  As a final note, Colbie Caillat recently released “Brighter Than the Sun” as the second single from All of You, which leads me to believe that I’m not completely off base in my opinions.

1)  “Hurts Like Heaven” – Coldplay (over ‘Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” “Paradise,” and “Charlie Brown”)

2)  “Fire Fly” – Childish Gambino (over “Bonfire,” “Heartbeat,” and “All the Shine”)

3)  “Brighter Than the Sun” – Colbie Caillat (over “I Do”)

“New Horizons” (Moody Blues Cover)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your fantastic Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions. Today I delve into a new band for me, but Jim has covered this band before. Of course i’m talking about the Moodies themselves.

I bring you a song from The Moody Blues’ album “Seventh Sojourn” called “New Horizons”. Jim introduced me to this song on a past radio show, and I have enjoyed it since. There is no Moody Blues song that I have heard that I didn’t like. I really should purchase some of their albums.

I’m very happy with how this video came out. You may notice I am using a capo. The song is in F and I usually have no problem whatsoever playing a song in F without a capo, but this song does require some barre chords to play. My arm was in a bit of pain today because I took a baseball off my shoulder in a game I umpired today. Barre chords tend to hurt my hand and forearm if I play them for a long time. I can get through a song fine, but today not so much. So I capo’d the song on the 5th fret, and played it using a C transposition. Worked for me, hopefully it’ll work for you.

A new band is coming to the sessions on Monday. Remember to check back every day for a new session, as a single laptop session a day rolls on through 2008!

Come back tomorrow for Jim’s latest and greatest session!

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!

“Merry Christmas Baby” (Beach Boys Christmas Song Cover Version)

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Hi all! It’s shaping up to be a busy Christmas season, but I wanted to come on and post a Christmas tune in preparation for the annual Fusco-Moore party, to be held this Sunday.

[in my best Conan O’Brien voice:]

Merry Christmas, babies!


“In My Life” (The Beatles Cover)

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By Mike Fusco:

Hey there!  First self-written blog on the laptopsessions site, and I’m excited to be learning all the ins-and-outs of the process.  (Not really EXCITED, cuz it’s lots of work, but the end result is exciting!)  So I was in kind of a bind because 3 days comes and goes so fast, and suddenly I was left to do another cover.  And anyone who knows me knows I used to HATE doing cover songs, so I have zero in my prelearned catalogue.  However, I figured out this Beatles cover song, my second favorite Beatles tune of all time (The first being “Something”, which I will do in a future session on the Uke in tribute to George Harrison!)  I’ve always loved “In My Life”, Ringo’s drums are great… they sound like feet shuffling during a slow dance, and I think anyone who gives this song a good listen will have a slide-show of their whole life playing in their head.

As I sing it to myself pictures of faces I dont speak to anymore still pop up, (“some are dead and some are living”- it’s true!), and loves that have come and gone.  I dont know exactly what this song means to me, I guess just because there’s no current love to sing it to makes me believe it’s sung to my soul… and whoever out there shares it with me, and the Big Man upstairs who is responsible for it all.  (No, not my father upstairs! haha!)  Not bad for a 4 am recording on a binge of candy and diet Dr. Thunder.  Enjoy!

~mikey