Coeur de Pirate - Wicked Games (Weeknd Cover)

Béatrice Martin is Coeur de Pirate of Montreal whose 2008 self-titled debut was widely successful. It came out when I was living in the french speaking part of Switzerland and it was all we heard on the radio and in the shops. We even had to write the lyrics to her songs in french class. I fell for that album and it led me into a world of french pop with which I'm still steadfastly obsessed. While she sings mainly in french she is bilingual and has done some great covers in english in the past.

The most recent cover is the song "Wicked Games" by the highly buzzed about Toronto group, Weeknd. What Coeur de Pirate usually sings is sweet, romantic, and innocent and this song is not at all PG. She simply plays the piano and sings lyrics like "let me motherf*ing love you" and somehow still sounds like her felicitous young self. The effect is not unlike when Anya Marina covered T.I.'s "Whatever you Want". It's easily one of the best covers of the year.

Coeur de Pirate - Wicked Games (Weeknd Cover)

Weeknd - Wicked Games 

Thanks to Chromewaves for this one. 

If you want to see what she sounds like singing in French, the lovely Wood & Wires filmed her singing at the piano for two songs from her new record, Blonde, which is out today. The songs are "Place de la République" and "Adieu". It's a gorgeous video. 

Cœur de Pirate- Wood & Wires Session from Adrian Vieni (Wood & Wires) on Vimeo

FREE MUSIC DOWNLOAD

I come across a lot of random options for free downloads on a regular basis. So I am going to try my best to throw them your way in the future. If you follow us on twitter, we always retweet free music or the arrival of new albums when we see them pop up. So you can follow us that way too.

For today here is a free download from Nike. One of my favorites Anya Marina's "All the same to me". Nike brings you new music every tuesday so don't forget to check back.

Anya Marina - Whatever you like (cover)

I was thinking of dedicating a whole week to great cover songs but then I came across this one and I just had to post it! Right. Now. It's that good...plus I realized one could dedicate a whole blog to great cover songs. I think covers are best when the artists take a song from one genre and adapt it to their own genre or style. Anya Marina has done just that with T.I.'s song. You might remember some of her first few songs (move you, miss halfway, clean and sober) from their appearance on Grey's Anatomy a few years back. Her new stuff continues to be great, with that same haunting voice, like in Satellite Heart. But this song, is just fantastic, I just downloaded it and its been on repeat ever since.