The Cranberries' searing acoustic version of "Zombie"

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/16/the-cranberries-searing-acou.html

The Cranberries: Tiny Desk Concert

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Sounds so much like the album version! What an exceptional vocal talent.

Except even better, I think. I was all choked up.

Woah. Crazy frisson at the beginning of the first refrain.

Thanks!

Edit: Hah, she’s way too mobile not to be individually mic’d, though. :slight_smile:

The live 1995 version they performed on SNL is pretty good, too. (The person who posted it apparently made it tilted in order to foil the copyright beasties. Just tilt your head when you’re listening to it and it sounds fine.)

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This is pretty sweet too.

Is there a term for the rapid vocal shift she does at the end of ‘zombie’ and ‘oh’ in the refrain? It seems like it might be similar to yodeling, which rapidly shifts between the low register and falsetto, but it seems different than that as well.

They always just struck me as grace notes/ornamentation which is common in celtic music. Probably would be considered Appoggiatura, if you’re looking for the specific type of ornamentation.

From wikipedia:

Ornamentation is a major distinguishing characteristic of Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton music. A singer, fiddler, flautist, harpist, tin whistler, piper or a player of another instrument may add grace notes (known as ‘cuts’ / ‘strikes’ in Irish fiddling), slides, rolls, cranns, doubling, mordents, drones, trebles (or Birls in Scottish fiddling), or a variety of other ornaments to a given melody

And what a great song as well.

Reading the wikipedia article fort that, I’m not sure if that’s it either because she jumps up at least a fifth instead of going down a step.

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