Country up-and-comer Luke Bryan will release his second album, Doin’ My Thing, on October 6th. First single “Do I” (co-written with the seemingly omnipresent duo of Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood) is already on my radio station every 30 minutes or so, but it’s his cover of OneRepublic’s “Apologize” that caught my ear when I put the advance copy of the album on for a spin. It’s that experience of hearing a familiar song out of context that shakes it up — to me, Bryan’s version is even sadder thanks to the mournful twang of its Nashville arrangement, and he sings the stuffing out of it, handing the falsetto with more aplomb than American Idol‘s Kris Allen.
Listen below and then tell us: What do you think, Mixers? How does Bryan’s cover stack up to the original… and the Idol? And who’s looking forward to Doin’ My Thing?
More from EW’s Music Mix
John and Mackenzie Phillips exclusive: Unreleased musical collaboration to come out
Miranda Lambert sings you a ‘Love Song’: It’s an EW exclusive video!
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees
Glee’s version of ‘Somebody to Love’: Awe-capella!
Photo Credit: Kristen Barlowe
It’s nice, but I still like Kris Allen’s cover from Idol the best.
you know as a up comming artist myself i think its a great song and think luke did a great job of the song he just keeps on suprising us with what he can do
unexpected, but awesome!
Lame.
I generally love your take on music and pop culture, but after giving this a listen all I can think is: “Really?” The arrangement isn’t much different from the original, and where it differs makes it sound like the usually dreadful first single for a newly crowned “American Idol” winner. I like a lot of country music, but this is as unnecessary as Kris Allen being forced to sing it during Top 3 week. The original is a solid, well produced track. I guess people can’t just leave those alone anymore.
I much prefer Luke Bryan’s “take my drunk a s s home” which didn’t get radio play. The falsetto in this song is painful.
I like Luke Bryan a lot, and I like this cover. He’s a very talented singer, and I think the falsetto is just fine in this song. He may not have the range of Ryan Tedder (and neither does Kris Allen, though his cover is just fine, too) but he sells the song well.
I first heard Luke sing this live and I was pleasantly surprised. I love that song and love Luke, so it’s all good as far as I’m concerned. I didn’t know it was going to be on the album though! Awesome!
Oh, and don’t forget that Lady A’s last third, Hillary Scott sings back up on “Do I”.
I’m liking country music a lot more than I used to, but this was just awful. Sorry Whitney, I gave it a shot!
This cover has nothing to propel it forward or offer anything new to the table. It just sits there. And his falsetto is AWFUL!
Luke’s a better singer than Ryan Tedder or Kris Allen but it’s not fair to compare a studio-enhanced falsetto to Kris’s live version. Luke sounds great on the verses but the choruses aren’t as good IMO.
I love Luke, and I was so excited when I heard he was putting this on his cd because his live performance of it is AMAZING! But I’m definitely underwhelmed by the studio version.
Being a “Not” country person at all..I would buy this single.
I don’t like it. One Republic did it best, with Kris Allen doing it pretty good as well.
I like Luke Bryan, but why was this song even remade? This song will be remembered about as well as 10CC’s “I’m Not in Love”. Lame song, let it die.
I’m Not in Love is still remembered to this day. Otherwise, why would you single it out?