You Give Love a Bad Name

  

The song "You Give Love a Bad Name"  by Bon Jovi is a classic 80's song that the band Atreyu covered for the soundtrack to the 2005 movie "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."  Atreyu brought an intense new take on the song, creating contrast by making it much heavier than the 1986 original.  They achieved this heavier sound by changing four major aspects of the song, the key, the tempo, the timbre, and the rhythm.

The original version of the song is in the key of c minor, the cover is in bb (b flat) minor.  This means that every corresponding pitch in the cover is a whole step lower than the pitch of the original.  Lowering the key makes the song sound and feel much darker.  I think the lower key fits the words better, because the song is about an almost evil sort of woman.

The tempo of the cover is around 140 bpm and the original is around 120 bpm.  This large difference in tempo gives the song more intensity, and more of an angry feeling to accompany the angry lyrics.

The original has classic "80's sounding" guitar and drums, the kind of sound that you'd hear in many hard rock songs of that time.  The cover has more distortion, which in combination with the lower key, also contributes to the darker timbre of the song.  The drums on the cover also sound similar to hardcore drums of bands today rather than the brighter sound of the 80's hard rock drum set.  The screaming vocals also bring a very different timbre to the song, as does the darker timbre of the singer.

The cover also takes some rhythmic liberties from the original.  While most of the song keeps a close affinity to the original rhythmically, the second verse of the cover uses a modern hardcore style.  By using palm muting, fast, and heavy picking, the verse is made much more rhythmically interesting.  The screaming vocals also differ in rhythm from the original singing.

Although I like the original by Bon Jovi, I would much rather listen to the Cover by Atreyu.  It is more upbeat because of the increased tempo, and the intense rhythm of the second verse. The increased distortion in the guitar makes the melodic lines and solos sound more impressive.  The lower key makes the cover more hardcore, and the screaming is more appropriate for the lyrics.

Overall, the Atreyu cover of "You Give Love a Bad Name"  is more exciting, and fun to listen to than the original.  Each of the aforementioned aspects they changed gave the song a lot more tension, and no release until the song ends.