Barracuda

Heart
I like Heart's Barracuda. There are a number of good songs on Little Queen, but this one has always stood out as the best for me, if not Heart's best track. To me, it shows what they could have been doing had they not gone down the AOR route with These Dreams, Alone and similar lightweight radio-friendly tracks. The root is the the driving rhythm of guitars, bass and drums, but even within that there are subtleties in the notes as the guitar and bass regularly play rehearsed fills together. This is an effect that stands out.

Fergie
Watching Shrek The 3rd, I heard the old favourite of Barracuda, but it was different. Turns out it was Fergie singing and in my opinion it featured Fergie's vocals at their best, well, the best I've heard her sing.

The guitar sounds like it was pumped through some digital monstrosity. Was that by design, by accident or through laziness, I don't know. I do know it's often easier to plug a guitar in and record through DI, but an amp nearly always sounds better. In this case, it's not even a nice digital model. I hate it.

Put the two versions together and you've got a great advert for why you should get a real valve guitar amp. With the prices of basic all-valve amps falling so rapidly. It's now at the stage where you can buy a valve amp for the same price as a modelling unit. Think I'd always take the valve amp.

Also, listen to the bass and drums. The drums in the cover have more of a disco feel. I actually like that, although I find it a bit much to have that rhythm all the way through. The bass plays a single note on the 4 beats of the bar. That's different to the Heart original where the bass follows the guitar rhythm. And those fills in line with the guitar are missing as well. They're my favourite bit.

A live version of Fergie's Barracuda

Vote on your version at the poll

Technorati Tags: Music