Digital Escort – “Pony”
Digital Escort – “Pony” – Single Review
Leave it to Digital Escort to cover a classic like this eh?
Look…the reality is, most of you folks out there probably wouldn’t even realize this is a cover tune. Whether it’s because it simply sounds like something you’d expect to hear out of an original cut from Digital Escort, or you just can’t recognize the Ginuwine cover that it is due to the savage Electro-Industrial treatment it gets and/or you forgot that Ginuwine was even a thing at one point – chances are this is just gonna sound all-new to ya, and that’s alright, ain’t it?
Obviously, there are a million reasons that make a selection like this song bold. If you’ve been a longstanding fan of DE, you wouldn’t exactly expect that they’re out there jammin’ on Ginuwine tunes on the regular, but you’d definitely assume they’d do something like this for the shock value of it all. And let’s be real here, they didn’t exactly play it safe by choosing some unknown tune at random – to be completely fair, “Pony” was a MASSIVE hit worldwide from one side of the map straight through to the other – big enough that many folks would consider it a track that helped define R&B in the mind-90s. So, you know…it’s not like Digital Escort has picked something no one would recognize – it might take a spin or two for people to realize it, but yes indeed, this is Ginuwine’s megahit “Pony” in an all-new light. Dark as fuck as you’d expect it to be from DE – dank is what they do…you demand it, they readily supply.
What I think was one of the most notable aspects of this cover was the fact that they leave it to the music to actually handle the main hook of “Pony,” which is largely what makes this version hella different and pretty much unrecognizable at first. You’re lookin’ for that ‘yeah yeah yeah’ part that pretty much propped up the rest of the original and gave Ginuwine the opportunity to slide this dirty little ditty right into the mainstream without anyone really realizing what it was about before it was already too late – but DE opts to handle that hook through their instrumentation instead. There’s risk involved in that…it’s not like they care, and it’s not like that’s what made them make that decision, but it’s interesting in the sense that you’re left with the fundamentals of the rest of the songwriting for them to draw on, and there’s actually more here than I would have personally thought. I wasn’t gonna be the guy to tell ya “Pony” was a well-written tune before listening to this cover, and now…maybe I would. I fully understand why DE would be interested in covering this to please their clients, but I’d be remiss to not point out that it’s actually quite an insightful gift to be able to hear things that others can’t. And YES…I get it…you can take an original and do the opposite and people will generally go WOW THAT’S AMAZING, like some bullshit grandiose overblown version of “Sound Of Silence” by Disturbed – but c’mon y’all…it takes more skill to make flipping the script sound like something you’d really listen to.
So credit where credit is due – I like the way they blaze this song up into a fiery cover that’s more or less totally unlike the original Ginuwine tune, and I think that’ll pay off for them in the long run. I mean…if Digital Escort had created a truly faithful cover, THAT would be shocking – you feel me? Like, if they all of a sudden went R&B on ya? You’d never see that coming. I wouldn’t put it past them either – no one really knows what this crew is capable of yet. The instrumentation is fired up, the vocals are both harsh and appropriately savage in the main hooks of the chorus, yet also slick like the lube on your jimmy hat when they slide their way through the verses…it all works. What they’ve really done with “Pony” is helped reveal the fact that this song probably had more hooks in it than you realized before – and they’ll have to live with exposing that to us all. Killer sounds rollin’ through this tune and a wicked-but-short solo in the mix for ya, with fierce production to rival their intensity…if there was something to complain about in this cover, I’m confident I would have found it by now. I’m pretty sure they’ve got something here that the majority of ya are gonna love when it comes right down to it. Whether that’s because it oddly brings back the nostalgia of a song you’d likely forgotten, or because you love how they’ve contorted this cut to their own design…this is tight like your momma, and I’m confident that ”Pony” will make you wanna saddle up & ride.
Find out more about Digital Escort at this multi-link here: https://linktr.ee/digitalescortband
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