ON AIR
metal + hardcore
pop punk + alt-rock
indie spins
 

Editorial

(Un)Covered: My Heart Will Go On

“My Heart Will Go On”
Writers: James Horner, Will Jennings
Original Release Date: December 8, 1997

I’m sorry in advance because this song will probably be stuck in your head for the next three weeks, but when it comes to power ballads, no one can hold a candle to Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”.

Confession: I haven’t seen all of Titanic. I mean, I know how it ends and everything, but I just haven’t committed to watching all seven hundred hours of it. Still, this song makes me think of countless middle school talent shows where someone would inevitably attempt to play this on piano (maybe it was just a Canadian thing?) because Céline Dion is a national treasure—and what better way to pay tribute to her than by pounding this out in a room full of twelve year olds? The highly prominent flute part and Dion’s breathy vocals make the song sound even more dramatic than the lyrics suggest, and yeah, twenty years later, it’s really cheesy, but it captures the romantic story at the heart of Titanic, so I guess it does its job well.

New Found Glory is no stranger to cover songs (they’ve released three albums consisting of covers), and this is from their first effort, From The Screen to Your Stereo. It’s still somewhat cheesy (in their defence, this cover album was released in 2000), but it’s about a million times more energetic than the original and would have given pop punk fans a taste of what New Found Glory was really capable of. It doesn’t even sound like the same song when that guitar riff kicks in at the beginning, and the whole thing is sped up so that it sounds like they’re in a race to see who can throw emotions out the fastest. It doesn’t really sound like a love song, but you have to give them points for passion.  

It’s chaotic and definitely less refined than the Céline Dion version, but New Found Glory managed to make a cover that holds up better than the original—power ballads can get old quickly, but pop punk is forever.

Tags: , ,
 
COOKIE NOTICE
We utilize cookie technology to collect data regarding the number of visits a person has made to our site. This data is stored in aggregate form and is in no way singled out in an individual file. This information allows us to know what pages/sites are of interest to our users and what pages/sites may be of less interest. See more