If you like guitar, acoustic covers and Gotye, you’re going to love this performance.
Gotye’s most popular song, “Somebody That I Used to Know,” was at the top of the charts in more than 30 countries around the world. It’s been covered countless times in different genres, but none quite as incredible as this one.
Canadian band Walk Off the Earth just blew all the other covers out of the water with a unique twist.
Instead of having the band play their own instruments, they crowded all five of them around a single guitar and played it together.
In keeping with Gotye’s impressive yelling during the chorus, Walk Off the Earth’s lead singer is making shouting chic too.
It’s strangely addictive and will be stuck in your head for hours—fair warning!
The song is basically about being ghosted after a break-up.
And for anyone who has ever been ghosted… you’ll understand why shouting is appropriate.
The verse that was originally sung by Kimbra (a New Zealander), and therefore calls for a woman’s voice.
The section is sung by Sarah Blackwood, who sings it on her own. Her melodic voice fills the room while her bandmates continue to strum and drum on the acoustic guitar.
It’s hard for everyone to be sharing the work equally when they’re confined to a small section of one instrument.
But they have all managed to do a really great job of giving the song some complexity and depth. It looks like they’re in someone’s living room and only have a few microphones set up. But the acoustics must be top-notch regardless, because the recording sounds pretty professional for a homemade YouTube video!
The amazing cover even made it’s way around the world to Australia, where Gotye got to see it—and naturally, he loved it! He even shared it with his 300k+ followers on Twitter.
I know who to ask for help with acoustic versions of Somebody: Walk Off The Earthhttp://t.co/vgnMmKvD
Hilarious and brilliant— gotye (@gotye) January 7, 2012
Gotye’s original version of the song was performed alongside Kimbra, a singer from New Zealand. How often do we see New Zealand and Australia get along? That’s impressive in itself.
It won numerous awards, and was featured on TV shows like Gossip Girl and an emotional scene in Glee.
It has also been viewed more than one billion times on YouTube and was recently included as one of the songs that shaped the decade by Billboard.com.
It also beat out “Truly Madly Deeply” (from 1991!) as the longest chart-topping song by an Australian.
The original song had an unceremonious release when it was somehow leaked early on iTunes.
Even so, the buzz around its release may have unintentionally helped it gain traction and international success. Wouter De Backer, also known as Gotye, explained how it all happened in an interview with Billboard:
“iTunes, YouTube and Facebook […] all had a pretty big impact on how this song and video were shared initially. To even have a few hundred million views, it was one of the most-watched music videos at that time.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc5CkKeg7xQ/
Walk Off the Earth’s version helped skyrocket them into fame too, and they’ve now performed at international festivals, made more creative covers, and recorded some of their own albums.
They’re not just a cover band! But for most lucky audiences, they still perform this awesome Gotye cover on tour.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Uy-w8JXPx/
Watch the video below to hear the incredible cover—and prepare to want to sing (or scream) along!
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