Tuesday, June 4, 2013

4 June 2013 - Lizzy Land - Pumped Up Kicks & When I'm Small

I've decided to occasionally feature YouTube-only artists on here, but I have some criteria that I'm going to use to choose who gets posted.  First of all, the artist needs to have at least one video of themselves performing out and live, for an audience.  Second, the artist needs to do something to blow me away.

Lizzy Land, an artist out of the Portland, OR scene currently living in Los Angeles, fits criteria #1 with this heavily beat-boxed version of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks".  I want you to notice how she layers this completely acapella version in a live setting, starting with her beatboxed background "instruments", and continuing with the vocals.  It's simply constructed, but it gives the song a rich feeling.


Remember what I said Criteria #2 was? The artist has to blow me away.

Lizzy starts with an acoustic guitar piece - a bassline of sorts - then layers a beat on the guitar over that. She adds a 2nd guitar piece on top of that. Layer 4 is a breathy vocal paired with a simple keyboard part.  Then the main vocals start.  There are keyboard accompaniments for parts of the vocals as well.  And yes, near the end, there's a 6th layer - a vocal "ah oh" type thing.

The song in its original form, by Phantogram, is one of my favorites.  So that Lizzy Land - which, according to her Twitter profile, isn't just a stage name, by the way - can make me not hate her version is an accomplishment already.  That she can make me love her version, and make it her own, and blow me away with a well-constructed song, speaks volumes.

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