Around June 19th of 2009, Beck announced that he was starting an experiment called Record Club.
For those who are unaware, the purpose of this project is to cover an entire album by another artist in one day. Taken from the Record Club page - “The album chosen to be reinterpreted is used as a framework. Nothing is rehearsed or arranged ahead of time. The songs are rough renditions, often first takes that document what happened over the course of a day as opposed to a polished rendering. There is no intention to ‘add to’ the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording.”
Beck employs a diverse group of musicians to help him out with each project. Notable musicians in the past have included MGMT, Wilco, Wolfmother, Sonic Youth, and many more. The albums that have been covered have been very eclectic indeed - The Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico, Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Leonard Cohen, Skip Spence’s Oar, INXS’s Kick and most recently Yanni’s Yanni Live at the Acropolis.
Today, I’ll compare the most recent cover from Yanni Live at the Acropolis - Yanni’s “Santorini” vs. the Record Club “Santorini” version. I’m actually not going to do any comparing myself but simply posting the two videos side by side for anyone to do their own comparisons.
I think it’s always interesting to hear other artists’ interpretations/renditions of songs that mostly everyone knows. In this case it’s exceptionally interesting. Be sure to read the little synopsis of the making of the song. Enjoy!
Original Version by Yanni:
Version by Record Club:
