Not only was Chris Martin a guest at Beyonce & Jay-Z’s wedding, but he’s been covered by Beyonce’s little sis Solange. The Knowles who released the better album last year tackles Coldplay’s #1 smash, and the result isn’t the train wreck it looks like on paper. However, keep your pants on. What it really amounts to is Solange singing karaoke to the Coldplay song. The band just recreates the original arrangement. The best covers have twists and turns in order to deviate from the original. This could be any chick with a moderately good voice in a karaoke bar. In this case, I wonder what’s worse, it sucking or it just being kind of “eh”.
Gettin’ tired of seeing the same names over and over? So am I. However, I still gotta give ya the charts every week, so here goes. As usual, these charts appear courtesy of the fine folks at Billboard Communications.
Top 20 Albums
1) “All Hope is Gone” Slipknot
2) “L.A.X” The Game
3) “Rock & Roll Jesus” Kid Rock
4) “A Little Bit Longer” Jonas Brothers
5) “Mamma Mia Soundtrack” Various Artists
6) “Tha Carter III” Li’l Wayne
7) “Now That’s What I Call Country!” Various Artists
8) “Love on the Inside” Sugarland
9) “Sol-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams” Solange
10) “Viva La Vida or Death & All His Friends” Coldplay
11) “Breakout” Miley Cyrus
12) “Good Girl Gone Bad” Rihanna
13) “The Illusion of Progress” Staind
14) “Raw Footage” Ice Cube
15) “Palabras de Silencio” Luis Fonsi
16) “Camp Rock Soundtrack” Various Artists
17) “One World-Soundtrack” Cheetah Girls
18) “Ultra Beatdown” Dragonforce
19) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
20) “One of the Boys” Katy Perry
Top 20 Singles
1) “Whatever You Like” T.I.
2) “Disturbia” Rihanna
3) “So What?” Pink
4) “Forever” Chris Brown
5) “Paper Planes” M.I.A.
6) “Dangerous” Kardinal Offishall feat. Akon
7) “Viva La Vida” Coldplay
8) “Closer” Ne-Yo
9) “I’m Yours” Jason Mraz
10) “I Kissed a Girl” Katy Perry
11) “When I Grow Up” The Pussycat Dolls
12) “Put On” Young Jeezy feat. Kanye West
13) “Can’t Believe It” T-Pain feat. Li’l Wayne
14) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
15) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
16) “Got Money” Li’l Wayne feat. T-Pain
17) “One Step at a Time” Jordin Sparks
18) “Get Like Me” David Banner feat. Chris Brown
19) “A Milli” Li’l Wayne
20) “Hot N Cold” Katy Perry
The cover of "Sol-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams", the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles.
The musical landscape is littered with them: artists trading on the talent and fame of their more talented, more famous sibling. Most music fans are smart enough to know that whenever “the brother or sister-or son or daughter- of chart-topping singer XXX” arrives on the scene, they should run for cover. My pals at Popdose recently dedicated an entire article to the phenomenon, bringing back some famously awful examples of a few artists who assumed that sharing a bloodline with someone meant sharing their talent as well.
So you have every right to be frightened by the sophomore effort from Solange Knowles. Yep, Solange is the little sister of world-famous diva singer/actress Beyonce Knowles, sister-in-law of Jay-Z. She’s occasionally stepped in as a fourth member of Destiny’s Child, co-written songs for her sister and her sister’s bandmate Kelly Rowland, and released a fairly horrid album of her own half a decade ago, “Solo Star”. However, she’s probably most known for creating a chink in the fresh-scrubbed Knowles family image by getting knocked up at 17 (Papa Mathew Knowles almost immediately made Solange marry the baby’s father, a move that Mr. & Mrs. Spears would have been wise to emulate). Now a 22 year old divorcee, Solange makes her re-entry onto the musical scene with “Sol-Angel & The Hadley Street Dreams”, a title so pretentious you almost want to hate the album before it starts playing.
Not only was Chris Martin a guest at Beyonce & Jay-Z’s wedding, but he’s been covered by Beyonce’s little sis Solange. The Knowles who released the better album last year tackles Coldplay’s #1 smash, and the result isn’t the train wreck it looks like on paper. However, keep your pants on. What it really amounts to is Solange singing karaoke to the Coldplay song. The band just recreates the original arrangement. The best covers have twists and turns in order to deviate from the original. This could be any chick with a moderately good voice in a karaoke bar. In this case, I wonder what’s worse, it sucking or it just being kind of “eh”.