Kina Grannis' Elements Album Artwork (left)
Peter Hollens (right)
Hey, JUKEBOXERS!! It's Jewel with another Wednesday review. This week I chose another collab: Kina Grannis and Peter Hollens covering "Pompeii" by Bastille.
Kina Grannis, a Mission Viejo native, is a half Japanese, half European-American guitarist and singer-songwriter. She started composing music in elementary school and entered her piano compositions in district art competitions. Then she learned the violin, which she played throughout her high school career, and at the age of fifteen, she taught herself how to play guitar. Grannis graduated from Capistrano Valley High School in 2003 and furthered her education at the University of Southern California. In 2005, staff members at Thornton School of Music in USC requested and released her album, Sincerely, Me. She created her YouTube channel in 2007 and earned herself a record deal with Interscope Records after her video, "Message from Your Heart" won the Doritos Crash Super Bowl competition. In 2009, she left Interscope Records to be an independent artist.
Peter Hollens, an "American pop singer-songwriter-producer" (as he calls himself on his website) is an Oregon native, Ashland, to be exact. He and Leo da Silva co-founded the University of Oregon's and the state of Oregon's first collegiate a cappella group: On the Rocks. The group was featured in season two of The Sing Off where Peter was praised by the judges (Shawn Stockman, Nicole Scherzinger, and Ben Folds) for his solo performances. Now, he records and produces music from his home studio in Eugene, Oregon. He has also recently done some music for Sony and Epic records.
First of all, I'd like to give them a round of applause for simply being able to sing a cappella. Trust me, it's not as easy as they make it seem, but I guess it's easier when there's only two of you and you aren't singing live. I love Peter's voice in this cover because he has such a well-rounded voice. Sadly, Kina's voice isn't so well-rounded, so compared to Peter's voice, she sounds really weak. To me, it seemed as if she was struggling to sing this song, but that's just how her voice sounds. However, there are parts in the song that sound great with her soft, smooth voice. As for Peter, I find that his voice is beter suited for slower, "classical" songs (which is what he usually sings, if you take a look at his channel) where you can show off your beautiful chops. I don't know about you, but I can hear him singing some Josh Groban, in fact, he covers one of Josh Groban's songs, "Brave", which I will put down below.
I'm giving this 3.5 records because a key element that makes this song amazing is its "upbeat-ness" (I like to make up words, sorry) from the pounding of the drums, and doing it a cappella makes it really hard to capture that aspect. I did like the creativity of the video and the harmonies, although these weren't as apparent as in some of the previous songs I've reviewed on this blog.
Here is their cover of "Pompeii" by Bastille
Listen to Peter Hollens' A Capella cover of "Brave" by Josh Groban
Information (Kina Grannis): Wikipedia- Kina Grannis
Information (Peter Hollens): PH- Official Website
Photo (Kina Grannis): Facebook- Kina Grannis
Photo (Peter Hollens): Facebook- Peter Hollens
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