Friday Jam: Everybody Wants to Rule the World-Mayer Hawthorne

This post is a last-minute change. I had already written a blog about a pair of Kiss songs, but you'll have to wait for those.

This song was just released yesterday and I got an email about it when I was sitting at my desk shortly after midnight.

It's intriguing to me for two reasons. First, I generally like the music I hear from Mayer Hawthorne. Modern artists making classic soul music usually makes me happy.

Secondly, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a great song, my favorite from Tears for Fears. It makes me so many things, including watching MTV as a child in the '80s as well as "Dennis Miller Live" in the '90s. (Remember Dennis Miler? He was a great comedian, then a bad football commentator and now a neoconservative curmudgeon.)

As I might have suspected, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" isn't exactly the neo soul for which Hawthorne is know. That's understandable, considering he's covering a new wave classic. (I promise there are a few of those.)

Hawthorne presents us with a version featuring his usual soulful vocals, but instrumentation echoing the '80s influences of the original.

Only it's a minimalist arrangement of those synths and drum machines that made new wave what it was. It's a great example of making a cover one's own without reinventing the wheel.

I hope you enjoy it ... or it at least prompts you to listen to something else by Hawthorne or Tears for Fears.

Have a good weekend, people.