Desified Cheap Thrills: Watch covers of the hit song on tabla, veena and a Juhu beach version
For Indian classical musicians and dancers, the song is the gift that never stops giving.
According to an article in Wired, approximately 12,000 new covers are uploaded every day. Forty thousand people covered Adele's Rolling in the Deep. Further down the spectrum, around 6,000 people covered Gotye's Somebody I Used to Know. That article was written in 2012 so countless more covers have been uploaded of those other songs since. A latest addition to that growing list is Sia's chart-topper song of the summer, Cheap Thrills.
Covers of the song on the veena, the violin, the tabla have found their onto the internet, apart from the usual karaoke-style covers. In fact, the most popular alternative is not even a cover, it's just three women dancing to the song at Juhu Beach in Mumbai. And it's got 3.7 million views. The "cover" on the tabla which is essentially musician Shobhit Banwait (video above) playing a tabla to the song as a backing track was uploaded on Saturday and has 3.6 lakh views. The version on the veena (video below), which is actually a cover has not been so lucky, only 1.5 lakh views since it was uploaded on July 17.
These covers occupy a grey area in copyright area. In 2012, YouTube announced a deal with publishers wherein the royalties from the videos would be shared 50-50 between the uploaders and the publishers who held the rights to the videos. However, not all publishers have signed to become partners to the programme.
Meanwhile the spate of Sia covers seems destined to continue. Here's a few more.