You Need To Watch DMA’S Cover Madonna For ‘MTV Unplugged’
It almost topples their Cher cover. Almost.
DMA’S have a knack for putting their own spin on ’90s hits from pop icons. Their Like A Version of Cher’s ‘Believe’ can cause a stampede when its opening bars echo out at a festival, and now, we’ve gotten a sneak peak of their MTV Unplugged Melbourne special, where they tackle another huge hit: Madonna’s ‘Beautiful Stranger’.
Recorded at St Kilda’s Memo Music Hall, the Sydney trio ripped through stripped-back renditions of tracks across their albums Hills End and For Now, allowing Tommy O’Diel’s voice to really shine. Without fan-fare or even announcing it, mid-way through the set they ran straight into ‘Beautiful Stranger’.
While the psych-pop song — a single from the Austin Powers soundtrack, no less — suits itself to a band set-up, DMA’S swap out the heavy guitar reverb for a double bass and electric violin, which really lets the tender lyrics soar. In their hands, it becomes a brit-pop ballad, and we’re totally here for it.
You can watch the performance below, ahead of the full set airing on MTV and MTV Music this Friday November 16 at 9.30pm.
We’re currently in somewhat of a mini-golden age for live music on Australian TV: we’ve got a few episodes left of The Set, the ABC’s live music show for Australian Music Month. While we pray it sticks around a little longer, we can definitely expect more from MTV — a little while ago, MTV Australia confirmed that Unplugged is sticking around for a few more years. Excellent news, since they’re on a winning streak: DMA’S special follows stellar sets from Gang Of Youths and Amy Shark (and while we’ve on covers, the latter’s rendition of ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ was really, really great, too).