REVIEW: Unfinished Sympathy by The Six (Featuring Jasmine Thompson)
Jasmine Thompson collaborates with the Manchester U.K. group The Six to create a beautifully sung cover of Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy. A definite must listen!
The Six is a newly formed musical collective described in this article as a "fusion of producers, writers, and musicians with a mutual adoration for evocative melodies laced with modern dance productions."
For their debut single, The Six and Jasmine ambitiously take on the challenge of reworking Massive Attack's classic "trip hop" anthem. Video is below.
There are two signature aspects to the original. First is featured singer Shara Nelson's soulful voice, giving the original a strong R&B flavor. The other is the full orchestral backing, which, along with the additional instrumentation and effects, lend the song a lush, layered anthemic sound.
Given it's iconic status and ambitious scale, Unfinished Sympathy is a very difficult song to cover and do justice to. Other than Tina Turner's version, there are very few notable covers of the song.
The Six's cover is successful precisely because it does not try to replicate the original's sound. It transforms the complex, layered original into a tight, highly dance-able electronic track with Jasmine's vocals at front and center of that transformation.
The Six wisely went with Jasmine's sweet, ethereal voice instead of choosing a singer who sounds like Shara Nelson. Jasmine's angelic vocals imbue the cover with an atmospheric, mystical, dream-like sound, giving the cover a signature stamp of its own.
The Six also could have settled for adding orchestral effects to the song to mimic the original. Instead, they kept the song relatively spare, emphasizing the driving dance beat and Jasmine's vocals. Unlike the original, The Six's version does not go instrumental for the last half of the song. Instead, the track repeatedly loops Jasmine singing the the line, "in my body soul and mind." Doing so turns Jasmine's voice into a vocal instrument of sorts. The effect is very catchy, it's hard not to sing along.
The Six and Jasmine's Unfinished Sympathy should be viewed as less a conventional cover and more of a song "inspired" by Massive Attack's original. They take the original as a jumping off point to create something uniquely their own. The song makes the listener want to hear more, and for that reason alone the song is a success.