Currently placed at number four on Billboard’s Top 100 chart is the song, “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye and featuring Kimbra . The first time I heard this song, my dad was playing it in his car on the ride back from a Springsteen concert. This was a few weeks before I heard the song on the radio. Admittedly, I was not really into the song at first. But, by the time it had ended, I was hooked.
After hearing it on the radio about two weeks ago, I did a quick search on YouTube to see if the song had a music video. As a music video junkie, I was excited when my search proved fruitful. While waiting a painfully long time for the video to buffer, my excitement grew.
If anyone has seen the music video, you already know what I saw next. There was Gotye’s naked leg, and then his naked hip followed by his naked chest. Nothing inappropriate was shown but, being a bit of a sheltered girl, I was taken aback.
However, the more I watched the video, the more I liked it. I was fascinated by the way Gotye and Kimbra were painted into the background. But, more so, I loved the intensity-the song is full of emotion is visible on Gotye’s face. It’s captivating.
At some point, after I had seen the video a few times, I posted it on Facebook. A few hours later, my aunt commented. She said that she liked the “walk off the earth video better.” I assumed she was referring to another video Gotye had made for the song in which he was walking off the earth. So, of course, I did another YouTube search.
The video I found was not another version of the music video. It wasn’t even Gotye . It was a cover of “Somebody That I Used to Know” by a band called Walk Off the Earth. It’s fame comes mainly from covering other artists’ songs. In it’s cover of Gotye’s recent hit, all five members of the band are playing on one guitar. It’s pretty incredible because all the instruments heard in the original are produced on one guitar.
However, instead of having one male singer, Walk Off the Earth has a male member who sings the lower verses and another male member who sings the higher chorus. Their one female band member sings Kimbra’s part.
Comments on the video and from friends of mine on Facebook flaunt Walk Off the Earth’s version of “Somebody That I Used to Know” as being the better version of the song. I do not agree. While their instrumental skills are clearly one of the most awesome things I’ve seen in a long time, their singing is lacking.
It is not as though the members in Walk Off the Earth who sing are poor singers; they simply lack the emotional intensity found in Gotye’s version. I firmly believe the reason why songs like “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Adele’s “Somebody Like You,” or “Fix You” by Coldplay are so widely popular is because they are emotionally charged songs. We, as listeners, can tell when artists care about what they’re singing. It makes us feel the same thing. An emotional artist can make an average song a number one hit.
I am not discrediting the skills of Walk Off the Earth because they are very talented. But it would be foolish to say their version of “Somebody That I Used to Know” is better than Gotye’s.
There is a reason why cover bands are never more famous than the bands they’re covering-they lack the emotion that accompanies the song when sung by its original creator. Thus, there’s a reason why Gotye’s version, not Walk Off the Earth’s version, is number four in the country.
