English rock band Bastille will be treating Taiwan audiences to a performance in Taipei on January 11, 2015. So should you check them out? The answer is a resounding yes.
Contrary to popular belief, the band is so much more than its hit “Pompeii”, from their debut album Bad Blood. Bastille’s frontman Dan Smith – a film buff and audiophile no doubt – has a real talent and ear for mashing up songs that span not only genres but decades, sampling tunes from hit singles to classic film quotes and sometimes even incorporating the band’s own songs and lyrics and always with a distinct “Bastille” touch.
We Can’t Stop
Bastille covering Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” seemed an implausible idea until the band performed it at BBC One Live Lounge. With the backing music of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and even a verse from Miley’s dad Billy Ray Cyrus about that “Achy Breaky Heart”, this cover catapulted the band’s talent for covering and mashing up songs into the mainstream.
Sweet Pompeii
In one of my favourite Bastille mash-ups, Calvin Harris and Florence Welch’s “Sweet Nothing” is mixed in with Bastille’s own smash hit “Pompeii”, and it even samples a conversation from the film American Beauty. And how are we? We’re great.
No Angels
No cover of TLC’s “No Scrubs” quite matches up to the original, and indeed Bastille doesn’t try to, instead the band completely reinvents the song by mixing it with “Angels” by The xx and some perfectly creepy quotes from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 classic Psycho.
Walk to Oblivion
Often overlooked, “Walk to Oblivion” is a masterpiece of a mash-up in its own right. It opens with the lyrics of the band’s own “Oblivion” to the melody of “The Lonely Shepherd”, the theme from Quentin Tarantino’s flick Kill Bill. The song then quickly changes genres – like Tarantino’s films often do – from Western to War with an infamous insult from Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket layered over the intro and backing music of Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks”.
Of the Night
A crowd favourite and perhaps the most well-known of Bastille’s mash-ups, “Of the Night” perfectly blends two 1990s dance hit songs Corona’s “The Rhythm of the Night” and “Rhythm is a Dancer” by Snap!.
Adagio for Strings (What is Love?)
Not to be outdone by Tiesto’s version of Samuel Barber’s orchestral classic “Adagio for Strings”, Bastille adds drums, an electronic vibe and Haddaway’s “What Is Love”. Stick around to the end, and you’ll be surprised to hear that Rihanna’s “We Found Love” also made its way into the track. On top of that, Bastille’s version opens with a quote from a pivotal scene (spoilers!) from Oliver Stone’s war film Platoon, which also features “Adagio for Strings” on its soundtrack. We see what you did there Dan.
Requiem for Blue Jeans
Smith’s voice is the perfect male counterpart of Lana Del Rey’s low smokey voice, and he captures Del Rey’s “Blue Jeans” perfectly in “Requiem for Blue Jeans” over the background sounds of “Lux Aeterna”, the theme song from the film Requiem for a Dream and quotes from the movie. Bastille fans who listen to the song in its entirety will be greeted a familiar riff and soon even more familiar lyrics, as “Blue Jeans” quickly merges into none other than Bastille’s own “Flaws”.
You can find all these mash-ups and more on Bastille’s first and second mixtapes Other People’s Heartache, Pt. I and Pt. II. The mixtapes are a treasure trove of film quotes, and Earmilk has compiled a comprehensive tracklist of songs and films Bastille samples for its second mixtape.
The band’s third mixtape VS. (Other People’s Heartache, Pt. III) was released just recently and features all original songs for a change, including a fantastic collaboration with HAIM.
But why stop here? Check out the band’s haunting rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” with Gabrielle Aplin, cover of Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died In Your Arms” and acoustic version of their own single “Flaws”.
Bastille will be performing at the Taipei International Convention Center (TICC) in Taipei, Taiwan on Sunday January 11, 2015.
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