If you haven’t already figured it out, I love covers. There’s just something about one band performing another band’s song, especially if it’s done in a style vastly different from the original band’s.
When I bought the Passion Pit CD, I was lucky enough to find the Limited Edition version that has “stripped down” versions of two songs and the band’s cover of “Dreams” by the Cranberries!
Just the concept of Passion Pit covering a Cranberries song made me squirm in the Amoeba Records aisle. One of my current favorite bands covering a song by a band I’ve loved since I was a little 4-year-old was a collision of my personal musical history!
Passion Pit’s electropop style made the song’s beginning, especially the synthesizer riff repetition, sound like an 80s hit. The drums were done in basically the same style as the original. However, you are reminded that this is a Passion Pit cover made in the time of bands like Arcade Fire at the 1:30 point when the choir-like wails combine with the layered synthesizer chords.
“Dreams” as covered by Passion Pit took sounds from the 80s, 90s, and today to piece together an opus of auditory and musically historical pleasure.