No self-respecting guy will admit to liking soppy girly pop by artists such as Mariah Carey. But it was with some happiness that TIL that a long-"loathed" favorite of mine, Mariah's Without You is actually a rip-off of a 1970 song by Welsh rock group, Badfinger (whose own story is pretty shocking (two of its band members committed suicide)). So I can now openly admit to liking the song :)
What is interesting is listening to subsequent renditions of the song:
The Badfinger original is pretty catchy that reminds me of Wings or The Beatles albeit with lower production values; while the chorus is catchy, it's missing some magic that could have perhaps made it more popular:
Harry Nilsson covered the Badfinger song a few months later and it won him a fucking Grammy (his second; his first was also a cover from the Midnight Cowboy OST named Everybody's Talking)! The delivery is quite different to that of Badfinger, more ballady with strings and the (rather feminine) vocals seem to soar more (even though the BF chorus is around the same pitch). It just has more polish even if it's almost a minute and a half shorter.
Now, here's Mariah Carey in 1994 apparently only a few months after Nilsson kicked his bucket. Her version is an adaptation of Nilsson's rendition and is of a similar length, but the breadth of her range (especially her low notes) is impressive. It's a pity that the song is a tad over-produced and ends with an annoying fade though:
All in all, even though hers is just a cover version, Mariah Carey simply owns this song. But I prefer Badfinger's version over Nilsson's.
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