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Though Swedish troubadour Jose Gonzalez has gained a lot of fans on the strength of his own "Nick Drake with an accent" recordings, he's never quite matched the evangelical furor created by his modest cover of the Knife's massive "Heartbeats." Perhaps seeking a second lightning strike, Jose has been steadily covering a similarly mysterious electronic tinged number, Massive Attack's immortal "Teardrop." As with its predecessor, this Jose cover grounds its otherwordly source material in earnest emotion and ably transfers its dark textures with inspired acoustic arrangements. But taking a step back from an appreciation of undeniable competency, am I wrong to ask what's the point?
The real effect of these songs is to paint Gonzalez in a dangerous corner. His grounded versions can't match the strange beauty of the originals, with acoustic guitar neccesarily making the songs seem more human, which is to say more common. But the more troublesome effect is that his keen ear for the exemplary songwriting of others makes his own originals seem more common still. Seems like quite the downside for a few extra blog posts.