Joy Electric

I do not listen to many cover albums.  So for me, it is somewhat strange to hear beloved songs with an electronic synthesizer background.  Who better to do it, though, than Joy Electric?  Joy Electric has been around since 1994 and is currently composed of Ronnie Martin and his Moog synthesizer. In Joy Electric’s latest album, Favorites at Play, Martin takes a step back from the originality of his past albums and focuses his skill on some already established songs.  Martin crafts his art with such skill.  He keeps as much of the original song as possible to cue listeners into the regular version, but is able to use his blips and synth to mimic the musicality of the original in his own unique style.  He gets help in mixing from Bob Hoag (keyboardist of The Ataris), mastering from Troy Glessner (Demon Hunter, Anberlin), and Moog playing from Missy M. 

Instead of the obscure tracks one might expect from Martin, his favorites are fairly recent, remaking tunes like “1234” by Feist and “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay.  These two tracks lend themselves fairly well to the electronic dance feel.  I was pleasantly surprised by “Viva La Vida.”  Martin took a brilliant and popular rock song and made it into something you could dance to, even bringing in the melodic “ohhhs” to wrap up the song.

Thoroughly shocking is the cover of “Falling Slowly,” Oscar-winning song from the movie Once.  This song should not transition to this style, but Martin does it well.  Martin’s version keeps the same ethereal feel as the original, and Martin’s voice is well within his range.  Occasionally, some of the background blips became distracting; it reminded me of when my microwave incessantly beeps to tell my Easy Mac is done.  The other thing missed in this remake is the duet aspect of this song; one man doesn’t quite catch the richness of the original duet.

The Killers’ tune “When You Were Young” also lends itself to a comfortable-sounding remake.  Martin alters his vocal quality to reflect Brandon Flowers’ distinctive singing style and the vocals seemed especially poignant in this context, with Joy Electric’s Christian roots.  The familiar lyrics that proclaim “You sit there in your heartache/ waiting on some beautiful boy to/save you from your old ways … He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus/ But he talks like a gentleman/ Like you imagined when you were young” have a slightly different tone.

“Decode,” familiar to anyone with a teenage girl in the house who listens to Paramore or the Twilight soundtrack, seems frantic.  An okay version, it is not my favorite from this record.  Martin’s voice sounds completely different than Hayley Williams’s (for obvious reasons), and his voice does not support the song as well as other songs.  Maybe multiple listenings of the original has poisoned my judgment (thanks, Little Sister), but I could have done without this tune.  The same goes for the final track.  “Say it Right” also wasn’t as strong as other offerings on the album, originally sung by Nelly Furtado.  It is not very exciting, kind of a let-down after the high-energy tunes of the beginning. 

By all accounts, this album was good.  Martin shows both a sense of musicality and understanding of the original songs.  The reservation I have with this record is that it simply seems to be a novelty album.  Its audience is either Joy Electric fans or fans of the original songs.  It may not be Joy Electric enough for the JE fans or accessible enough for the fans of these random tunes, none of which are traditional Christian fare.  Yet, the songs Martin has chosen to cover are fairly common, so anyone who listens to popular music these days would at least be familiar with a few tracks, and that might be enough to catch Favorites At Play  a listen and maybe some new fans.

Tagged as: Favorites At Play, Joy Electric, Ronnie Martin

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