Everything She Wants (Wham!)

So this makes it almost 3 weeks in a row (and I even have one more completed track in the bucket)

So this weekend I recorded Wham’s “Everthing she wants”. It has been on my “short list” of songs to cover for years and years. So I decided to just do it with mixed results.

Download Everything She Wants

Before going into the arranging/recording of this song and what I think works and doesn’t work. A little about covering songs.

Why this song?

This, you could file under “semi-ironic cover song”. I say semi because I don’t think I have ever covered a song that I loathe simply to make fun of it. In fact, I never really try to make fun of a song. Have fun with it? yes. But I usually latch on to something I really like about a song and augment whatever is good about it. In the past I have been partial to R&B pop songs (pink’s most girls, britney spears, shakira, tlc’s waterfalls — man, that was over 10 years ago?)

Most of those songs have very nice melodies over what amounts to absolutely no inteligble music. I did a cover of the Car’s “Just what I needed” and by changing the mood of the music, brought to the foreground what sounds to me like some really dark lyrics — but I degress.

So, Wham’s “Everything she wants”. Man, what a bitter bitter angry song. Not that it’s saying much, but this song has always been my favorite wham song. I remember secretly liking it. It falls into the “nice melody on top of nothing” camp. It makes it pretty fun because there is very little there to either work around or ignore. So what I had was a cheesey 80’s song with some nasty lyrics. A canvas to repaint the entire thing. Like most of my covers, I arrange them without listening to the original (or at least as little as possible). Most of these have been in the back of my head for sometime. I had figured this one out musically over a year ago, so I knew the chords. I actually got some of the music wrong on this one! I realized once listening to it again.

What horrible productions!

I did end up getting this song of itunes to listen to it. And its production is just horrible. It’s an ANGRY song, so stop singing everything with such pin point accuracty with a gazillion effects on your vocals. From the very first “yee-he oh!” — its delayed for like a minute back and forth between speakers. And all “oh oh oh yeah yeah yeah”. You are telling your pregnant wife that you don’t love her!!!

And that horrible synth sound? Really, was that necessary? What’s bitter about that?

The Arrangement

My only real jab at this song is the arrangement. I went for the opposite effect of the original. Immediately instead of pin point syncth glibs and glups, you get a very sloppy distorted bass banging out the most simplified element of this song. There is a nifty minor to major chord change and originally I thought the bass should reflect. I decided against that. So pounding bass, slow moving synths, and muted or droning guitars make up the verses.

The other decision I made early on was to not sing ANY of the ohohohyeahyeahyeah’s or corny “won’t you tell me” parts. That was all left to instruments. The vocals would be fuzzed out themselves getting even further away from the preciseness of the original.

What Worked

I have mixed feelings about how this one turned out. I really like the arrangements of the verses. This was the least planned part. I knew the droning guitars would be there. Originally I was not going to use an MIDI. I wanted it to be a “rawk” song. The MIDI when it comes in is by far my favorite part of this song. Juxtaposed with the fuzzed out bass, I think works really well. I also added a MIDI “guitar harmonic” sound underneath the droning guitars in the verse that I really like.

What didn’t work

The vocals don’t sound very good on two fronts. 1. I have a cold and stuggled through it. I had to do some serious cutting a pasting the “two takes” to get a single take without horribley missed notes. I think I salvaged it mostly, but it’s not my best singing. The fuzzed out effects are not what I had in my head either. Not sure how to fix it.

The chorus (what I thought would be the strongest part) is the weakest part. The loud guitars seem to be washed out of any detail. I cut most of the reverb from them — it was work in an earlier mix. Relying on the gutiars to fill in some of the singing parts and then not really hearing them that well make the chorus a little bland.

Download Everything She Wants

I will probably revisit this song in the near future and re track the vocals and work on the chorus more.

Anyway. it’s here. it’s, um… something. get used to it (or don’t listen).

Oh, and THIS…