Hellberg (ft. Aloma Steele) - "The Girl" [Jonah Wei-Haas Piano Cover]
I first came across the original track of Hellberg's "The Girl" which features singer Cozi Zuehlsdorff. You can hear that version
here. I knew when I heard it that whoever wrote the song (I'm assuming Hellberg) knew what they were doing from a musical-theory perspective. However, I didn't find that the instrumental synced-up well enough with the way the structure of the vocals were written. Not that the instrumental is all that bad, but I felt that the lyrics and vocals deserved something more. Luckily, the "The Girl" was part of a remix contest, so I was able to sift through over ten remixes to find something more to my liking. Well, it turned out that I didn't like any of the remixes, either. At that point, I was going to drop the song altogether, even though there was so much promise in it. That's when I just so happened to click on a piano cover version featuring Aloma Steele, who I know has been in some other tracks put out by the label Monstercat.
Steele's vocal performance is darn good, although she does struggle in some spots to stay on key. It seems to be a live cover, and as far as I can tell it has not been edited with any kind of voice-correcting software, which is why you can hear her breathing patterns. I could be wrong, but that's what I hear. Because of that, and the fact that the instrumental is pure piano/keyboard, it is more intimate, so it fits the lyrical content better than the original.
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I'm going to go ahead and add this next one. This falls in the guilty pleasure category.
Aloma Steele - "Baestation"
Now, "Baestation" features crude lyrics, so I gotta hang up an NSFW tag on it, albeit it's all done in a humorous way. From what I can gather, Steele is a
Call of Duty player, so she's making [lighthearted] fun of fellow
Call of Duty players. I'm not sure if she also made the beat for the track, but if so, I'm impressed. "Baestation" is just for fun; not something to be taken seriously. Even though that's the case, this has a direct-from-artist feel to it like a lot of my selections do; it's ground-level stuff, which is why I like the electronic scene so much...artists making music they want to make, whether serious or to have a good time. This was released on the label SectionZ Records.