Adam Levine was on the Tonight Show tonight. He had a bit with Jimmy Fallon where they were doing musical impressions, called “Wheel of Musical Impressions”.
Jimmy was okay, but Adam killed.
First, he did Frank Sinatra singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. Good.
Then he did Michael Jackson and the Sesame Street theme. The Roots layed down a track from “Smooth Criminal”, with Adam singing the lyrics over it. Awesome.
Then he got Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) and “The Muffin Man”.
Even struggling with the lyrics, it’s funny as hell.
Adam hardly sounded like Sinatra or Michael Jackson. He did Vedder pretty well but it isn’t hard to do Eddie Vedder.
Jimmy only got to do 2, but his Dylan was better than anything else by either. His Iggy Azalea didn’t sound much like her, but she’s female and not even a singer so it’s forgivable.
My opinion is the polar opposite to yours. I’d say that, excepting Iggy Azalea (who isn’t iconic enough to be included in the first place), Eddie Vedder was the most difficult selection. Dylan is dead simple. Anyone can do Dylan. Sinatra isn’t too hard and Levine did a good job. I think he would have done better if he could have remembered the next line of the song (“eyes and ears and mouth and nose”) because he could have stretched out a bit on that line. Levine’s Michael Jackson, while sounding a bit too much like Stevie Wonder at times, was very good. But Levine’s Vedder was the best one. It’s easy to imitate Eddie Vedder when you sing a Pearl Jam song. The trick is applying his voice and his particular affectations to an arbitrary song. Levine nailed it. I don’t think most people could have come up with anything for Vedder, while everyone can sing any song in Dylan’s style.
So, checking out Frank Sinatra here, I’d say he did pretty well, though it would have helped if he knew the next line (but I didn’t know the next line, either), simply so he could have carried it a bit longer.
As for Michael Jackson, I was thinking of this. I suppose I can see the Stevie Wonder connection, but my mental map pegged the MJ I linked.
And while Jimmy did a good Dylan, that’s expected. We already know Jimmy does good impressions, and can do a killer Dylan, so there’s nothing special there. Whereas Adam Levine pulling off impressions is unexpected.
Hell, Jimmy even said after Adam’s MJ that that couldn’t be beat, but they still had some bit to do, so he went with the next round.
And then Adam’s Eddie Vedder was bedder. (It needed to rhyme. Sue me.)