Under the Covers Playlist featuring “Fix You” (Coldplay Cover) by Boyce Avenue ft. Tyler Ward + 14 other songs, Monday, January 24, 2022

Boyce Avenue formed in 2004 after brothers Fabian and Alejandro Manzano were rejoined with their eldest brother Daniel, who had just graduated from Harvard Law School, when Daniel moved back to Sarasota, Florida. In 2007, the band decided to start a YouTube channel, posting original music and covers of well-known songs. Soon the band's popularity grew and they signed to Universal Records and embarked on U.S. and world tours. The cover-band sold out their first show in New York City in 2009, and accumulated fans overseas as well. The band currently has 15.5 million subscribers on their YouTube channel. 

LIGHTS WILL GUIDE YOU HOME. Boyce Avenue often joins forces with fellow YouTubers, and today, the boys join another artist who was in the YouTube cover game early as well, Tyler Ward. The band collaborated with Ward in the same session for his channel, covering Fuel's "Shimmer." But today's song is Coldplay's song "Fix You." Written on a synthesizer belonging the late American television director Bruce Paltrow, Coldplay's lead singer Chris Martin wrote the song to help his girlfriend at the time, Bruce's daughter actress Gwyneth Paltrow, through her grief. While it's in vogue to hate Coldplay, "Fix You" is a perfect song of grief. Whatever loss you're dealing with, the guitar solo will give you power. Today, I introduce another mixtape that I've been thinking about for a while. This time only songs that are covers can make this list. Again the rules are one song per artist, but I'm not going to be picky about covering the same artist. This is an evolving playlist, meaning I'm going to add to it. Today I've only added 14 songs, a less spectacular feat considering the When We Were Young post. However, I might add to this playlist with covers mentioned in my blog or I might add those to Volume 2. Either way, Volume 2 is possible soon because I have two Boyce Avenue songs. They are the first cover artist I posted. So I will post the YouTube playlist and make a brief comment about each song:

1. "Fix You" (Coldplay Cover) by Boyce Avenue ft. Tyler Ward. The song of the day.

2. "Can't Feel My Face" (The Weeknd Cover) by Andie Case is a tribute to her friend Montana Billings who passed away. It's a mellow and spare adaptation of the song.

3. "Diamonds" (Rihanna Cover) by Josef Salavat. This acoustic cover of Rihanna's 2012 hit is chill and beautiful.

4. "All Along the Watchtower" (Bob Dylan Cover) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. This cover was so iconic, it caused Dylan to perform it with the adaptations that Hendrix used.

5. "The Boys of Summer" (Don Henley Cover) by The Ataris. The punk-rock band's greatest hit was a cover. I debated leaving this song off the list and using it later. I left Christmas songs off the list. But I ultimately decided that this playlist isn't seasonal, so "Boys" can stay.

6. "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia (Ednasnap Cover). This cover is much, much, much more popular than the original. In face, most listeners don't know that this song is a cover. I didn't know that until I wrote about it last year. Mind blown!

7. "Erase" by Charles Angell (Copeland Cover) is a powerful, YouTube-only cover of Copeland's song about existential dread.

8. "Clean" by Ryan Adams (Taylor Swift Cover). It seems that Ryan Adams isn't a good guy, when I read about him for my blog. But it was kind of interesting a forty-something hipster recording Taylor Swift's massive pop album acoustically is kind of interesting.

9. "The Great Adventure" (Steven Curtis Chapman Cover) by Kevin Quinn and the cast of A Week Away. Repeat: this is not a good song. I had to review this movie, though.

10. "Feel Good, Inc." (Gorillaz Cover) by Filous ft. LissA. Sometimes you just want to hear a version without "Ass crack."

11. "Everywhere You Look" (Cover of the original Full House theme) by Carly Rae Jepsen. Because don't we all just miss our childhoods?

12. "I Won't Give Up" by Eric Nam (Jason Mraz Cover) before he was a K-pop Star, Atlanta-native Eric Nam posted covers on YouTube. His version of "I Won't Give Up" is my favorite.

13. "So Sick" by Sam Tsui ft. Max, Produced by Kurt Hugo Schneider (Ne-Yo Cover). It's a little bit cheesy, but it's a nice song.

14. "Bang Bang" by Daniela Andrade (Cher cover), but also famously covered by Nancy Sinatra and used in Kill Bill. Andrade's version is spare, and I think it was my alarm clock tone a few days, making it easily stick in my head.

15. "Feel Good Drag" by Jonathan Slack (Anberlin cover) is just a guitar in an empty room and a voice that really carries. And the sad thing is that this singer doesn't seem to have pursued a career. 

16. "Untouchable" (Luna Halo cover) by Taylor Swift is distinctly different from the original. It seems that Taylor Swift was hanging out in Nashville and heard a supposed up-and-coming band that never caught on and recorded their song as a bonus track on her Fearless album. 

16. "Summertime" (George Gershwin cover) by Lana Del Rey

And that's my short list for the day. I'll add to it as I blog about more songs.

Read “Fix You” by Boyce Avenue on Genius