Comparison Assignment

I choose to do my comparison on several arrangements of Lou Reed’s song “Perfect Day.”

The version recorded by Lou Reed (which is the original) begins with a short piano introduction before he begins to sing. Soon thereafter, you will hear strings join in and some soft percussion. It makes use of a device often used in Rock/Popular music, the quiet verse and the loud refrain, so there are some great contrasts in dynamics throughout the song that keep you interested. Overall the song is somewhat simple, but there are enough finishing touches on the song to really make it great. The introduction of the strings is one of them. With just the piano accompaniment in this song it would’ve been really bare, but the strings really fill out the sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYEC4TZsy-Y
The next version I found of this song sounded really interesting to me at first. It was a “One Man Band” version, with one guy playing the piano, singing, and playing foot drums and therefore providing a beat. The problem with this version was just that I think the guy was doing too much. One way he accomplished doing all of these things was to make the piano part really staccato. In doing so he really changed the feel of the original and I didn’t like it nearly as much. He lost a lot of what made the original great and that was the detail and thought put into all of the parts. It was an impressive feat however to see this guy play all these parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3R3JgZF7Nk
The last version of the song was someone who had taken the music and arranged it all for one guitar. It contained both the vocal melody and the accompaniment. I thought this version was very well done. The guy did a pretty decent job of containing as much as he could of the song for guitar. Obviously again the fullness of the strings is lost but I actually enjoyed the somewhat mellow mood of this arrangement; and for it being one guitar, it was a pretty full sound he managed to pull out of the guitar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5B_opp0HhQ