“Diamonds” by Boyce Avenue (Cover of Rihanna), Wednesday, July 13, 2022

The model for Boyce Avenue's success was simple: choose a current top 40 track and release a cover in their own style. YouTube would list their videos below the original song and suggest more of their songs on the side banner. Starting their YouTube channel in 2007, they were on the ground floor of the viral marketing. And with international tours and constantly releasing content, the band continues to have a large following on streaming services. The band hasn't released a full-length project since 2020's Cover Sessions, Vol. 6, but have been releasing singles in 2021 and 2022, including today's song, a cover of Rihanna's 2012 hit, "Diamonds."

Image captured from the James Webb Space
Telescope from NASA's Flickr account. Source.
PALMS RISE TO THE UNIVERSE. It's difficult not to think about the children's song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," particularly the line: "like a diamond in the sky," when I hear any version of Rihanna's "Diamonds." The chorus says, "we're beautiful like diamonds in the sky." The song gives a very distant feeling. The speaker choses happiness which might mean separation from a loved one. The speaker and the listener are beautiful with space between them, perhaps with the 13 billion light years between them like the trending photos from the James Webb telescope. While stars are "like a diamond in the sky," actual diamonds are more common in space than Earth as the conditions of pressure and heat are found naturally on planets with a higher gravity than Earth's and hotter temperatures. Because diamonds and graphite are chemically identical, my high school science teacher often scoffed at the idea that he had to buy his girlfriend a diamond ring to propose to her. And given that diamond culture was created by a jewelry company in the 1930s and sold to us with keen placements in movies and advertising, starting with Marlyn Monroe declaring "Diamonds are a girl's best friend." De Beers marketed diamonds to us, setting the standard of how much to pay for the engagement ring. In 1930, one month's salary. In the 1980s, it became two months. In the '00s, my science teacher would have been expected to fork over three month's salary.

FEEL THE WARMTH, WE'LL NEVER DIE. One of the memories I have with this song comes from an Australian TV show called Please Like Me. The show is centered on awkward 20-something Josh (played by Josh Thomas) as he deals with finding love after realizing that he is gay. In the second episode of the final season of the show, Josh and his friends and the guy he is dating, Arnold (Keegan Joyce), at the time go on a camping trip. Through out their relationship, Josh and Arnold seem to be completely out of sync. On the first night of the camping trip, Arnold brings his guitar and starts singing "Diamonds" (see the clip below). Keegan Joyce who plays Arnold is actually a professional singer and the performance is not that bad, but the eye rolling between the other characters makes the scene oddly relatable for anyone who's been on a camping trip with that guy. Of the three songs in the episode, Rebecca Black's "Friday," Arnold playing "Diamonds," and the ending of the trip listening to Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself," "Diamonds" serves as maybe the most memorable part of the show that I watched years ago. The show is worth a watch to American viewers who have never tried an Australian show.

Boyce Avenue's version: