Blog Assignment 3a

Major Tom- Shiny Toy Guns


       The original song of Major Tom sang by Peter Schilling was actually in German.  It became an instant hit and an English version was made in 1983 by the same artist.  Shiny Toy Guns recently covered the song.  The lyrics between the original English version and the cover are exactly the same.  I do not know about the German version but the song is a story based the fictional astronaut created by David Bowie in the song Space Oddity and then mentioned in two more of his songs, so I imagine that the lyrics stayed the same in translation.  The intensity between the two songs varies a bit in my opinion.  The original version is played softer but the newer version of the song appears to be much louder.  Speed is also a slight but noticeable difference between the two with the recent version being a little faster which often seems the case when a band covers a song from a past decade.  The timbre is probably the most noticeable difference between the two songs.  Peter Schilling's version uses very basic instruments and has a very 80's sound.  But the shiny toy guns version is very electronic using many sounds.
       I find it a little bit harder to apply the binary terms to these two songs but I think I can do a good enough job using a few of them.  First of all I pretty much just discussed the contrast and affinity between the two songs.  The lyrics were similar, but the intensity, speed and timbre appeared different between the two songs.  I think that I can also apply tension and release to the second song.  In the Shiny Toy Guns version of the song, starting at about 3:00 into the song she starts singing the chorus over and over with the music getting more intense each time and at around 3:33 she releases the tension by yelling the last word of the line. 
    As for which song that I like more, I am going to have to say that I like the cover.  This is not very typical for me, especially with a cover that is pretty similar in sound.  I Just really like the electronic sound more than I do the common 80's sound.