Misery Business // Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox ft. Therese Curatolo – Robert Percy
My favourite old-timey cover of a modern pop song at the moment is Postmodern Jukebox’s version of Paramore’s ‘Misery Business’. The reason this one jumped out at me is because it’s not a typical old-timey style cover of a pop song. It starts out that way, but once it gets to the solo section we get a full-on distorted heavy metal meets jazz fusion guitar solo played by Tosin Abasi (the mastermind behind the instrumental progressive metal group Animals As Leaders).
It’s brilliant in the context of what is otherwise a 1940s sounding interpretation of the song because it completely defies our expectations of what is going to happen. Postmodern Jukebox’s covers do tend to have a fairly predictable format and temporarily leaving that format for something totally out of genre makes this cover rise above many of the others.