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A few weeks ago, I posted a YouTube video of some guy in his basement doing his own one-man cover version of Rihanna‘s “Umbrella” – and now the “Umbrella” phenom has hit the indie music scene! It seems everyone and their dog has a version of this little ditty and now it’s time for you to pick and choose your favourite.

Mandy Moore‘s version is very sweet. I mean, she is my pretend-girlfriend after all so I have no qualms about her wanting to share her umbrella with me.

Cute-as-a-button and so uber-talented it hurts, Marie Digby has also an official cover version which was featured on the season premiere of The Hills – it definitely rivals Moore’s version. If you missed it on The Hills, you can go to her official MySpace page to see the YouTube clip of her singing it in her livingroom, and the page also links to the official iTunes download site.

My two personal favourites though come from John West and Scott Simons. John West’s starts off just “OK” but gets really good when the cello and backing vocals round out the sound – his voice has such a nice tone. Listening to it, turned-up on my headphones, actually gave me chills. Listen to it NOW!

Scott Simons‘ version is just simply great – his soft voice mixed with the piano and electric drums effin’ rocks. As Jen astutely pointed out, he sounds “like a male Imogen Heap” and I couldn’t agree more.

I love this phenom – that one fun, poppy, well-produced Top40 song has actually inspired so many artists (and mainly indie artists) to dissect it and re-build it on their own terms. This is also a great way for indie artists to get noticed – I’m definitely more inclined to check out their other material.

Which one is your favourite? Are there other versions floating around as well? If so, I’d love to hear them.

Posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 at 3:22 pm by Soja and is filed under Music & Videos.

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