Rock Report Listening Log - Essay Example

The darkness always looms just outside of hope. There is a sadness that is much more explicit than in the original which gives a whole new dimension to the beautifully rendered lyrics.

Musical Characteristics: Once again, the remake is more haunting, the music creating a more powerful message in that there seems to be more of a threat than the original sung by Annie Lennox. The music is defined by a more ethereal and dreamlike synthesized backdrop. The sound of Browning’s voice is sweeter than both Annie Lennox's or the cover done in 1995 by Marilyn Manson whose tone was far more threatening. Browning creates a wistful, less feminist sound than was created by Lennox, and within the framework of the musical translation, the music sounds more victim-oriented than empowering.

The original versions of each of these songs can most easily be identified as pop music, with the Lennox version through the Eurythmics being a bit more alternative in the popular genre as it was being expressed in the 1980s. Both remakes create their variation through a socially relevant musicality that comments on the current social situation over that of the original. In the 1970s when Imagine was released, there were still some remnants of hope for social reformation as the world had changed so dramatically during the 60s and 70s. A Perfect Circle represents a far more desolate image of the social landscape, the idea of the world-changing hung within the bitterness of the disappointments of the generations of the last few decades. The Browning version of the more empowered version by Lennox reflects the sadness of the female position, vulnerable to exploitation and abuse as revealed within the film Suckerpunch for which this version was created. As a song originally from the 1980s when women were finally beginning to win the battle for equality, the position that they are currently in with the objectification and subjectification sexualizing the female position to the point of defining the female by her sexual nature is revealed in the despair with which Browning expresses her vulnerability.