The saying goes that if the shoe fits, then wear it. If Solange is the shoe-wearer and Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" the shoe, then I'd say Solange has about size 5 feet and the shoe she's trying on is about 3 sizes too big.
I won't uber bash on Solange because frankly, she's already in the doldrums of the music industry anyway. Plus, I actually liked some of the songs from her album Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams. But what spoils Littler Beyonce's cover of the song is what has always plagued her career: Solange tries too hard. "Viva La Vida" is very much a sigh of a song. Chris Martin's vocals bounce and float with the instrumental with , which reinforces that with a very light and airy feel. It's the story of a leader looking back on his glory days, not a warrior unleashing his war cry.
But Solange decided, the hell with soft vocals, I've got something to prove! So she stepped out with peacock feathers in her hair and hooted and growled through the song, thinking if she just squeezed that note out just a little harder, maybe people won't bring up Beyonce in her next interview. Then she tried to "rock it out" by throwing some histrionic Christina Aguilera-like "Whhhooooa!"s on it, and the whole thing became a cacophony of barnyard noise.
It ain't easy being baby sister, y'all.
