Miles apart from the original, in a melancholy world of its own.

 

It takes an awful lot of courage for an artist to cover an intensely popular track, but it takes serious bravery to reimagine that song completely into your own style. That’s why I would like to commend the bravery of electro duo Batts, whose cover of Haddaway‘s well-known What Is Love is worlds apart from the original.

Take the upbeat sound and dance elements of the original and throw them away. Forget they existed and it’ll make the transition smoother. Batts completely bring down the tempo and the mood with this self-contained anguishing cover, moving along at a lumbering pace with an emotional vocal line. Fans of the original might find this a hard change to swallow, particularly as the only things that this really shares with the original is the title and lyrics.

But with that said, it’s definitely a good cover. The subject matter of What Is Love was waiting for something that wasn’t so upbeat (typical 90s…), instead focussing on the emotional struggle. Batts deliver that struggle beautifully with a defeated vocal and melancholy music.