Well I received this track in my inbox this morning and I’m not entirely sure what I think of it. On one hand I really liked the Kanye original because at points during the song his voice would break down like he was literally reliving the heartbreak. On the other hand I didn’t really love the Kanye original because of the fact that, at least in my mind, Kanye should stick to what he does best, that being gallivanting around as a rap master, and leave the singing to the pretty boys. And speaking of pretty boys, here we have The Fray, a band that actually made their name by singing, covering Heartless. I wanted really badly for this to be a superb cover. I wanted it to drip with emotion and have a rough and heartbroken feel. The only problem is that it doesn’t.
mp3 : The Fray - Heartless (Kanye West Cover)
What you will find here is smooth vocals, instrumentation, and generally a good cover song. What you will not find here, at all, is any reason to think that this is better than the original.
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There was a pretty good cover of Heartless on American Idol last night. I wish I knew the name of the kid but my roommate was watching it and I just happened to go in the kitchen when he came on. Randy Jackson said it was much better than The Fray’s cover. He sang it with much more emotion.
Kris Allen covered it on Idol. It’s kinda sad that I know that, but we started watching Idol this year for Kris. He’s a local guy. He’s actually done some decent twists this year—giving Donna Summer a stripped down Santana-ish sound, doing Ain’t No Sunshine as a piano ballad, and attempting Falling Slowly from the movie Once.
Adding that you should definitely check out the “Heartless” cover from American Idol last night.
Kris Allen’s “Heartless” cover was probably the highlight of that top 3 nite a couple eves ago on AI. (Aren’t all the Idolizers just coming out of the online woodwork here? Ha.)
@everyone who apparently thought Idol was awesome. i listened to the track and, although it was nice, i’d put it directly alongside this cover by The Fray. they’re singing a song called Heartless and they couldn’t seem to find a way to put some, er, heart into it.
@billy, it’s a Kanye West song. What do you expect?
wow… I didn’t realize people still watched American Idol… I like that Jon referred to it as AI, because for a brief second it made me think about the AI Director in Left 4 Dead instead of American Idol… I love video games.
The lyrics are bitter and frustrated. This shit is way too stagily and mushy for them. Bah!