The Laptop Sessions: “Chinese Sleep Chant” (Coldplay Acoustic Cover)

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

By Jeff Copperthite:

And continuing from last week’s post is the song that is followed by the one I covered last week.

Now, I know that i’ve covered a bunch of Coldplay songs, and quite a few from Viva La Vida, but there’s a good reason.  Everybody loves this band.  They write catchy songs, and enjoy performing and love their fans.  How can I not want to cover this band?

This song is more of an instrumental than a lyrical song, but the lyrics are present and sung.  I initially wanted to perform this with my electric guitar hooked up to my bass amp.  However, I hit a few snags.  1) My electric strings are kind of old.  2) The bridge of the guitar sticks out of the base of the guitar a bit, making the strings a bit further from the fretboard, and therefore more difficult to play.  3) The amp is meant for bass, and I could not find a good combination of settings that made my guitar sound like a guitar.

However, practicing the song on the electric proved helpful, as it made it a lot easier to play on the acoustic.  Funny how that works sometimes.

This video came out great.  I’m very proud of this cover.

I have reached my first milestone post 100K views and hit 110K views.  I’m nearing 500 views per day on my videos, and I can’t wait to tell you when I am averaging 1K views per day.  It could happen before the year is out!

Also, Jim…I left you a voicemail a couple of days ago.  Give me a call please.

The Laptop Sessions: “Yes” (Coldplay Acoustic Cover)

Friday, April 10th, 2009

By Jeff Copperthite:

Welcome to your Thumpin’ Thursday installment of The Laptop Sessions (and almost fantastic Friday as well)!

I hope all is well on your end, and that you are celebrating with your family and friends one of the two major religious holidays that are going on at this point in time.  I myself have been to two Seders in the past two nights, and i’m done until next year with those.

Tonight I have a great cover song, and to boot, it’s a 2 parter!

The song is “Yes” by Coldplay, and yes it’s another song from their incredibly popular album “Viva La Vida”.  I was so excited that when I picked this album up last year, I didn’t even look at the track list.  I put it in my CD player and heard each song on the album before I even knew the name of it.  This song and the 2nd one that I will cover next week were my favorite.  I just liked how it tied together and it’s gentle and “pleading” beat (I couldn’t think of another word to describe it).

I find myself enjoying Coldplay’s library more and more.  They do a great job putting music together.

Speaking of people who do a good job putting music together, have you picked up Jim Fusco’s new album Halfway There yet?  I’ve only heard previews of some of the songs, and if that is any kind of indication as to the quality of this album, you best hear it and purchase it yourself.  I also am looking forward to hearing his remastered version of “What About Today?”, which is an awesome album as well.  Jim’s music always pleases.

In the meantime, enjoy this song!  See you next week!

The Laptop Sessions: “Cemeteries of London” (Coldplay Acoustic Cover)

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening and thank you for visiting laptopsessions.com on this Thumpin’ Thursday.  I bring you another popular band on this site for your enjoyment this evening.

I’m trying to perform some more songs this year that are not singles (or are not yet singles), and tonight is one of them.  From Coldplay’s recent album “Viva La Vida”, I bring you “Cemeteries of London”.  I really enjoy this album, and later in the year I plan on taking on a more involved song from this same album - and no, it’s not a single either.

Tomorrow the new semester begins, and I have worked all day to get things ready for it.  I am most excited to be teaching Physics this coming semester, as well as the classic Earth Science that I have taught six times in the past 2 years.

Also, I am approaching 80K views.  This will most likely happen tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy today’s entry!  Stay tuned as we continue to bring you sessions in 2009!

The Laptop Sessions: “A Rush of Blood to the Head” (Coldplay Acoustic Cover Song)

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening!  Welcome to your Friday edition of The Laptop Sessions, and to make up for the short (but thumpin’) song yesterday, I have a song that is more than double the length of yesterday’s song.  And it’s from a familiar band that I have enjoyed covering a lot.

Coldplay returns tonight with the title track of their album “A Rush of Blood to the Head”.  This album has a lot of songs similar to this - a soft, mellow acoustic style with interjections of drive guitars and distorted solos.  This is probably the longest song by them that doesn’t involve some of Chris Martin’s trademark falsetto (with exception of the opening, but that part isn’t all that difficult).

It was fun covering this song.  It is based on acoustic, so covering it was easy.  I nearly had it in one take but I played the Bb chord in the chorus too soon.  So on take #2, I was happy with it.  The timing of some of the verse lines and post-chorus lines are different than the studio recording, but this cover version works just fine with that.

I hope you enjoy today’s cover - be sure to come back tomorrow for a brand new cover song by Chris Moore himself, and then i’ll be back Sunday for another familiar band - heck, we’ve already seen the band this week, but it’ll be the first time i’m covering that band.  Who is it?  Be sure to come back all weekend to find out!

The Laptop Sessions: “Lost!” (Coldplay Acoustic Cover)

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

By Jeff Copperthite:

Good evening, and welcome o your Tuesday edition of The Laptop Sessions. It’s Jeff today bringing you another great acoustic cover video. We’re continuing to roll along with session-a-day in the middle of August.

It feels weird to bring you an acoustic cover video that isn’t from Pink Floyd, after nearly two weeks of the Pink Floyd Hat Trick. I hope you enjoyed those, but I also hope you’re ready for another familiar band here at the Sessions.

The band today is Coldplay, and I am covering my first song from the album “Viva La Vida”. The song is “Lost!”, which isn’t really an acoustic song. It has a rock beat with an organ playing the main chords. There is a guitar solo (what song isn’t complete without one) and there are a couple of electric guitar riffs in the recording. I love this song because of its infectious chorus (”Oh and I’m just waiting ’till the shine wears off”) and its straightforward chord progression. It is cool to here this song with the acoustic treatment, because neither recording that I have heard of this song (the piano and album versions) has an acoustic guitar.

You’ll notice the unusual background - I recorded this song in our hotel room in Vermont. So if you’re in the VT area listening to this, it could’ve been recorded down the street from you. On that note, the acoustics are not that great, and I didn’t want to play louder than usual because I didn’t want to attract too much attention from the neighbors.

Well, i’ll see you again on Friday, and I know you’ll come back to hear another original song for Original Wednesday, here on laptopsessions.com - the best acoustic cover video blog on the internet!!!

The Laptop Sessions: “Violet Hill” (A Coldplay Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new acoustic cover song! Tonight is a special treat for those of you who love to listen to new music. This is “Violet Hill,” a track off of Coldplay’s brand new album Viva La Vida. This album was just released in 2008, and this is the first song from the new album to be featured here on the music blog. As an added treat, this is my very first Coldplay cover — I’ve always avoided this band, not so much because there aren’t any songs that I would like to cover, but because Chris Martin’s vocal range is typically much higher than this particular Chris is comfortable with…

Which leads me to my take on Coldplay’s catalog. I first listened to A Rush of Blood to the Head when one of my co-workers at Staples highly recommended it to me. At the time, I was listening to the Beach Boys’ underrated and (in my opinion) under-appreciated album Carl & the Passions - ‘So Tough.‘ Perhaps it was because I had been listening to one of my favorite albums of all time, but when I began listening to the Coldplay album instead, I must admit I felt let down. This is the band that Rolling Stone magazine and many others have repeatedly termed one of the biggest and best rock bands of all time. Martin was recently referred to as a “Rock God” on the cover of RS. Don’t get me wrong; there were excellent songs, like the hit “Clocks” (that Jeff Copperthite has already covered - click here to listen!) and the title track, among others. However, the album seemed to suffer from an inability to really pick it up and move. So much seems to drag and float, Martin’s vocals only exacerbating the protracted sensation that the repetition of sections and sounds creates.

Years and listens later, my disapproval of Rush of Blood has certainly softened. I would even say I’ve grown to appreciate the album, though I’m still unable to really get into it. Their subsequent release, X&Y, was a different story altogether. Although I can understand why it was criticized for sounding too similar from song to song, I immediately grew fond of X&Y, and it is as a direct result of liking this album that I decided to give this year’s Viva La Vida a chance.

And I’m so glad that I did!

From start to finish, I can’t say enough about this new music from Coldplay. The album is a concept album and the best I can say is that it’s simply done well. The concept isn’t forced; it feels like a complete thought is being expressed. The fade-in and fade-out are the same synthesized section, giving the album a sense of being cyclical, which is interesting given that the main focus is life and death. I wondered if Chris Martin has been influenced by the true innovators of the concept album, the Moody Blues. For songwriters, there’s alot to be learned from albums like To Our Children’s Children’s Children’s, which have yet to be topped, and I doubt that they ever will.

As Sharkboy from TNA wrestling would say, “And that’s the fishin’ line!” (A play on Stone Cold Steve Austin’s “bottom line” catch phrase.) That’s it for me until next time, but don’t miss another quality session from Fusco-Moore Productions’ own Jeff Copperthite tomorrow…

See you next session!