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Shallow-ism – One Song in countless Versions

Florian Buechting Just Blogging on music No Comments

I have to admit that Germany is likely the largest music market, in which the amazing duet “Shallow” of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper did not hit the very top of the singles chart. The song as well as the movie “A Star is Born” were absolute cash-cows. Thus, it is not that surprising that so many artists loved the song (as I do) and tried to interprete it in their very own way. I just felt to gather a couple of these cover versions in a Flyctory.com posting. I like most of the versions really much – hope you do, too.

Unfortunately, one of the best versions of “Shallow” I listened to have not been recorded: Twinnie and Kenny Foster gave a lovely song at the Country 2 Country 2019 Festivals in Berlin as well as in London. If you happen to find it somewhere, give it a try.

 

The Close-to-the-Original Ones

Most of the covers are imitating the original song and are arranged quite close to the original song. On the one hand, it may be the easiest way to cover a song – on the other hand, it is much harder to add your own character to it. Most of the ones listed below made it and gave their very own version of the song.

 

Danielle Bradbery feat. Parker McCollum

I am a big fan of Danielle Bradbery. I chose her song “Sway” as one of the best of the 2018 C2C in London. For her Gaga-Cooper cover, she is partnering with 1992-born Texas singer-songwriter Parker McCollum. I like their version, also because it is not that slow as many others.

In May 2019, they even released the song with a full music video:

 

Vazquez Sounds

Vazquez Sounds is a Mexican band by three siblings. I like the soft voice of Angela Vazquez Espinoza in this cover, though it is not as powerful as the original.

 

Boyce Avenue feat. Jennel Garcia

Boyce Avenue are typically doing alternative rock. However, they did a couple of amazing acoustic covers. Here, they partnered with Jennel Garcia for a lovely version.

Alyssa Shouse

When you look for covers of “Shallow”, you very often find this version by Alyssa Shouse in the top rankings. Unfortunately; I could not find out too much about this singer-songwriter from Maryland. Nice interpretation, though.

Lukas Nelson & Hunter Elizabeth

The video is just a recording from a West Los Angeles concert and may thus have a limited sound quality. This version is the one I added as the very last to this posting. Lukas Nelson, son of legendary Willie, is not just an amazing artist, who was one of my most impressive artists at the 2018 C2C in London to me. He is also some sort of the tragic musical hero of “A Star is born”: he wrote eight songs of the movie soundtrack, but “Shallow” is not part of his creations. Nevertheless, nice to listen to the duet.

In June 2019, I reviewed Lukas Nelson’s and his band new album.

 

Some quite different Arrangements

The more you do something alternative (if it is good), you may give the song a different character. Here are some cover versions I found which are just special.

 

The JLP Show

The JLP Show is a cover band from Beirut, Lebanon. Their version of Laldy Gaga & Bradley Cooper’s classic starts very soft and lame, but becomes a really nice rock song at the end. 500k views on Facebook is not too bad for that, I guess.

Max Sheldon & Ben Platt

Max Sheldon and Ben Platt are both actors. It is quite amazing how they interprete the song in their way, but still keep the dynamics of it. Worth listening to.

The Peace Proms of Ireland

This project by the Corss Border Orchestra of Ireland, which is uniting young musicians from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The voices are Christopher Halligan and Jess Reinl. Another concert recording of their version of the song reached more than one million views – this one is just much better in quality.

Eduard Freixa

The Barcelona violinist Eduard Freixa did this very special instrumental version of the song. Great video and very impressive by the way it is performed.

Two Versions by Allie Sherlock

The 2005-born Allie Sherlock is one of these YouTube stars which make me feel very old and old-fashioned, just because I did not know her name at all. I put her versions of the song in an own section for two reasons. First of all, it is amazing how she is able to interpret it at her young age. Secondly, the first version, which she is doing on her own, has 8.5 million views – so it just cannot be too bad.

 

Doing it… Differently

I am not sure if “a sense of humor” is really what has been added to both of these “Shallow” covers. But at least, these versions might be the ones which make you smile most. You might also just think them to be the most ugly ones.

Trisha Paytas

Trisha Paytas is another of these YouTube stars which I haven’t heard of before I started to work on this posting. This is maybe the only version where I do not recommend to turn on the volume too much. I would absolutely disagree that this is the “Best cover” of the song – but it somehow may stay in your mind – and it sells: three million views on YouTube!

Nerdist

This is one of the best covers of the song, I feel. Yes, it is a parody (and it is not by my well-beloved Weird Al Yankovic…), but it is really close to perfectly done. Fantastic sound and music, a great music video, so that the Nerdist website created some 1.7m hits on their YouTube account. I viewed it several times and still love it.

 

 

Last but not Least: The Original

If you are still not tired of listening to multiple versions of the song, maybe you like to finish your read with the original. Over 460 million YouTube views at the time of writing – a truly impressive figure!

 

Shallow – My View

I feel it is really amazing to see how many cover versions exist of an amazing original song of “Shallow” in a comparably short time. Most of them are even quite good. I would even rate of them to be competitive with the original. Of course, there is also the other side of music quality of covers – but I guess Lady Gaga and Bradley cover may live with it.

 

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