Confide’s Postal Service Cover Proves That Taunting Indie Kids Still Makes For Great Publicity

noah | July 13, 2009 12:00 pm

“The Worst Band, Worst Song of 2009?” the music-aggregation site The Daily Swarm wondered about the Christian scream-core outfit Confide and their new single “Such Great Heights,” which is a cover of the bubbly, UPS-approved single released by indie-blip outfit the Postal Service a few years back. The song starts off as a pretty straight cover, but then the vocals kick in and, well… let’s just say that lead singer Ross Kenyon’s style of singing was definitely not influenced by Ben Gibbard. Clip after the jump.

As you might expect, this cover—which is most assuredly not worse than “I Love College,” and which if you strip out Kenyon’s singing is actually not all that unfaithful to the original!—is resulting in much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. One of the nicer reactions below the video is as follows:

Wow. I already hate screamo cause it’s a pile of shit, but now there’s just a white fiery rage burning inside. Good job on making an absolutely beautiful song into a fucking car wreck.

There’s much more where that came from (and it’s much angrier, and filled with mocking of the band’s prettiness!). But in the grand scheme of things, you have to give Confide credit for one thing: Getting the attention of self-appointed tastemaking types who would normally never “lower their standards” and give a Christian screamo band a first look, let alone a second—and then, twisting that attention into outrage thanks to the seeming “debasement” of one of their most beloved songs. This video already has 8,700 views and is approaching 200 comments! Would a plain old screamy song about how God is great have done that? Not a chance. So, bands out there whose aesthetics might not be right in line with the indie world’s tastes, but who want to grab that ever-elusive online buzz: Heed the gospel according to Confide, and you too can up your Google Blog Search ranking. It’s genius, really—the sort of flip side to the “sleepy covers of pop songs” pitfall that trips up all but the best indie-rock outfits. Who here wants to put down odds on how long it is before the world is “treated” to brokeNCYDE’s crunked-out version of “My Girls”? Confide – Such Great Heights [YouTube via The Daily Swarm] Confide [Buzznet]